Amber Lynette Von Tussle entered her first beauty contest when she was a meager five months old. She won Baltimore's Most Beautiful Baby, and, without knowing it, set herself up to fail for the rest of her life. Nothing would be as good as Baltimore's Most Beautiful Baby except for first place. From then on, she had to be amazing.
Amber Lynette Von Tussle had to be beautiful all the time. She had to come out of bed after getting the chicken pox and the flu at the same time and win the 4-6 division of Little Miss Baltimore.
Unfortunately, she took runner-up. Her mother was not happy. She remembered sitting in the back seat of her mother's Cadillac, legs crossed and head hanging down. "Not even fourth. Fourth! Couldn't even do that! I'm telling you, Amber, you have nothing if you don't win these things. Do you hear me? All you have are your looks. You're worth you appearance, that's it. You need to step it up."
Little five-year-old Amber nodded glumly and scratched a scar on her knee. She still itched, but if her mother saw her scratch, she smacked her hand. Her mother hit hard.
Her father liked her just fine, but he and her mother didn't get along. They argued over Amber's beauty contests. He didn't think they should put her in them. But her mother always yelled that beauty contests gave her what she had, and Amber wouldn't be anything without them.
Amber liked the contests, actually. All the girls were nice, and she liked making friends. What she didn't like was the mothers there. They all yelled, all the time, and if they thought you were prettier or better than their daughter, they treated you like garbage.
As Amber got older, she realized that even though they were vicious, the mothers were consistant. The girls, however, smiled at her a little less every time they saw each other. Amber could sort of understand. Being around the mothers could twist one's personality that direction.
After all, the young girls soon realized that when they won, they didn't have to go home to all the yelling. And to win, you had to beat out all those girls you were making friends with. Soon the backstabbing began. The 7-8 circuit started to get fierce. The 9-12 was hard to be in, because the girls would bump into you on purpose, and they hid your stuff when you weren't around.
Amber missed her friends at first, but quickly realized it was a dog-eat-dog world. There was no advantage in being the only nice girl amoung a room full of vindictive cats. She was a quick learner. Before long, she knew the game better than any of those brats.
For some reason, this made her mother more proud than anything. Amber found herself a little closer to her mother, who would tell her stories of her days in the beauty contests. She always spoke of the now-expired pagent, Miss Baltimore Crabs.
Amber found herself taking notes from her mother. She didn't realize until it was too late how burnt out her mother was, how she clung to being young, and how unappealing it was. By then she was sucked in, it was too late to change.
Amber Lynette Von Tussle was a born performer. She played her part very well.