Sour Grapes

right at the lighted glass case that sat on its own special table and held her pride and joy… the Miss California Sunshine crown... in all of its cubic zirconia glory.
    She was good at what she did.
    Very good. And she knew it
    She looked across the room at the younger, far less attractive version of herself stretched out on the twin bed against the opposite wall.
    “Go downstairs and get me a soda,” she told her sister. “And make sure it’s a cold one from the back of the fridge.”
    “Get it yourself.”
    “I said... get me a soda, now!”
    The well-trained younger sibling stirred from her bed, grumbling under her breath, but obeying nevertheless, trudging across the bedroom in penguin-spangled, flannel pajamas.
    In their little sorority, hierarchy had been established long ago, and it was too late to challenge authority now.
    “Diet! Make sure it’s diet!”
    “Eh, screw you.” The objection was mumbled low enough that it didn’t constitute outright mutiny.
    As soon as sister number two had left the room, the beauty queen picked up the telephone and punched in some numbers.
    Her party answered almost immediately. Keeping her voice low, she said, “It’s me. Yeah. Did you think it over... you know... what we talked about?”
    She frowned, not liking what she heard. “ That won’t do. That’s not what I want. I told you what I want.”
    She listened again, but not for long. “No! I don’t care what you say; it’s gotta be the way I told you before.”
    More objections on the other end.
    She shook her head, sending curlers tumbling, and stomped her bare foot. “No, no, no, no! You better listen, or you’ll be sorry. A lot of people are gonna be sorry if you don’t listen to me.”
    As the party on the other end continued to fill her ear with unpleasantries, the bedroom door opened and her sister appeared, diet cola in hand.
    Time to end the conversation.
    “You heard me,” she said in her most ominous tone—a voice she would never allow a panel of pageant judges to hear. “I made it very clear to you what I expect, and this isn’t negotiable. I want action... very soon. Understand?”
    She slammed the phone down and snatched the soda out of her sister’s hand. “What are you grinning at?” she snapped. “What’s so damned funny?”
    “You.” The younger girl walked back to her bed, flopped across it, and began to chew her thumbnail. “You trying to get your way with people.”
    “I don’t try. ”She took a long swig of soda and smiled. “I do it.”
    “Yeah, well, you’re gonna squeeze the wrong person one of these days, and you’re gonna get it... something you don’t want, that is.”
    Beauty set her soda aside, took another look at her Miss California Sunshine crown, and went back to dabbing pimples with lotion.
    “No way,” she said. “I’m a woman who knows what she wants... and how to get it. Every time. You just watch me, Squirt, and take a lesson from an expert.” The younger sister groaned and rolled over to face the wall, mumbling minor obscenities...just loud enough to express her disgust... but low enough not to incur Her Highness’s royal wrath.
    Yes, in this tiny kingdom... everyone knew her place.

    An hour later, on the sidewalk across the street from the beauty queen’s modest suburban home, a figure stood in the shadow of some oleander bushes, watching.
    The upstairs bedroom light had been out for twenty minutes. Twenty-three, to be exact. But the watcher still waited. Thinking. Planning.
    Having observed the house before, the person knew that four people lived there: mom, pop, the beauty contestant, and her younger sister, and knew which bedroom was hers... the little bitch on the phone... the one making demands.
    The watcher knew what had to be done. The only questions remained, “When?” and “How?” Some things had to be done properly. Carefully. And murder was certainly one of those.
    The first time the thought murder had crossed the watcher’s brain, it had been like an electric shock, terrifying, repulsive, foreign. But with each subsequent thought, the concept seemed less revolting, more possible, even necessary. The would-be victim had chosen her own fate. The rest was a foregone conclusion.
    But when?
    Now wasn’t the time. Not on a quiet, residential street in a house full of people. Not without a plan... a good, well-thought-out plan.
    The pageant.
    The Miss Gold Coast Pageant began in two days. An event full of emotion,