Page 119 of Guilty Mothers
‘Stace, I want you going deeper on the backgrounds of everyone we’ve spoken to since Tuesday. We have to—’ Kim stopped speaking as Penn sniggered.
‘Well, that’s a turnaround, isn’t it? How did she explain that?’ he asked.
They all waited.
‘I mean the irony of Bobbi’s attitude towards the pageant business in her role at the ERA.’
‘Still drawing a blank, Penn,’ Kim said.
‘Well, surely Bobbi Carter is also Roberta Carter, the most popular pageant girl at the top of this list?’
Kim looked at Stacey, who looked at Bryant, who looked at her.
How the hell had they all missed that?
SEVENTY-NINE
Kim was still wondering how they hadn’t connected those particular dots when Bryant pulled up outside the premises of the ERA.
Another question was why Bobbi hadn’t mentioned it either. She’d had plenty of other stuff to say about the pageant world.
The lady herself answered the door. ‘Ah, you again,’ she said, stepping aside for them to enter.
This time there were another two women present, drinking beer and making use of the pool table.
Kim wondered if the place was for serious issues or just a hangout spot.
‘Just wanna chat about some new information,’ Kim said.
‘Shoot,’ Bobbi said, taking a seat and reaching into a bowl of popcorn.
‘You were quite the little performer in the pageant world as a child.’
The absence of reaction from the other two women told Kim this was no secret.
‘Oh, yeah. I did it, and I was bloody good at it.’
‘You certainly were,’ Kim acknowledged. ‘You pretty much won everything you entered.’
‘I did indeed. I won money, gift vouchers, holidays. It was a blast. I remember the days fondly.’
‘You made friends?’
‘It wasn’t like that. You had to compete, be better than the rest. There were some girls that wanted to be liked, but that’s not how you won the big bucks.’
‘You must have been popular?’ Kim asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘There was a lot of jealousy, but you got used to it.’
‘You speak so fondly of those times I wonder why you have such an aversion to them now.’
‘I did pageants for six years, and it’s taken double that to recover.’
‘Go on,’ Kim urged. Although prickly, Bobbi did seem to have it all together, and despite her passion-driven forays into vandalism, she presented as intelligent and educated.
She held up a piece of popcorn. ‘See this little sucker? I can tell you the calories and fat content. I know how many steps I need to do on the treadmill to work it off. Each piece I eat triggers a battle not to run to the bathroom and vomit it back up so the calories don’t register. I won’t because I’ve made progress, but controlling the actions is much easier than controlling the thoughts.’
‘And your relationship with your mother?’ Kim asked.