The Rockstar Who Loves Me

Prologue ♫ Una Noche Tan Linda

Prologue: Una Noche Tan Linda

"Y la ganadora del Miss Venezuela es..."

There were two moments in my life that I would forever mourn. This was the second one, when I stood besides Miss Monagas.

Our hands were clasped together like we actually gave two fucks about each other, smiling for the cameras and an invisible audience in the Teresa Carreño Theater. With the limelights set firmly over us, it was impossible to see the mass of people congregated in the dark seats of the place as they watched, expectant like the rest of the country, to see who would be crowned Miss Venezuela.

The pageant's theme song danced a jig in my brain. Training with the tune playing in the background for a year wasn't even why. It was because every girl in this country had grown up with it.

En una noche tan linda como esta...

Sure, it was a pretty night. I looked like a Barbie who had got plastic surgery to look even more perfect. Except in my case, it was the magic of having eaten only lettuce and canned tuna for nine months, exercising for eight hours every day, and the additional help of makeup, two kilos of hairspray and absolutely no underwear under a dress so tight it was only held up by fashion tape and pins.

That was partially why my heart pounded. If I had a wardrobe malfunction, I would flash the entire country and be left only with the protection of my Miss Vargas sash. A prospect that, at that second, horrified me even more than not winning the pageant at all.

The presenter, an actress who had shot to fame after a couple of nude pictures accidentally leaked to the public, took her sweet-ass time to open the envelop with the final result, as though no one in the pageant knew the winner already.

Miss Monagas was one of the favorites all along, what with the extensive publicity her sponsor had given her. They made sure to never appear in public together, but everyone on this side of the cameras knew he was a gajillionaire businessman with ties to the government, who really enjoyed Miss Monagas' company.

Meanwhile, my backer was my reluctant uncle. He was rich, but not infallibly, and he'd agreed with my mom that I shouldn't have been a part of this contest in the first place.

Finally, the presenter produced the slip of paper and announced, "Y la Miss Venezuela es... Miss Monagas, Stephanie Abraham."

I went through the motions. As Miss Monagas' face transformed into a caricature of shock—homegirl nearly dislocated her jaw in her pretend-shock—I gave her a hug I tried to pass off as genuine for the sake of the cameras, and stepped aside to give her the big moment she had worked so hard between the sheets for. Not that I was bitter.

As I watched the crowning, clapping even as someone else came over with my First Finalist sash, crown and flower bouquet, I still convinced myself that all my hard work hadn't been in vain.

Placing so high in the pageant without going under the knife or under some gross man, was a feat in itself. And while I wouldn't go on to the biggest beauty pageant in the planet, I would be the representative for Miss World. Something good might come out of that.

Besides, there was historical precedent of many contestants who didn't earn the most coveted crown, and still went on to become successful models, actresses, TV presenters or even singers.

That was why I'd put up with a grueling year of physical torture, food deprivation and lewd stares left and right—to get Mom and I out of poverty, fast, and without depending on anyone else's help. I'd got to this noche tan linda with my uncle's money, and it had to be the last time we ever depended on someone's charity. From here on out, it'd be up to me.