Pretty Ugly: A Novel Read Online Free

another girl, she would name her Brixton Destiny Miller.
    Her husband, Ray, wasn’t so sure. “Don’t you think it sounds a little … porny?”
    Miranda did not.
    When Bailey won her first pageant, Baby Princess Bar-B-Q Fest (Owensboro, Kentucky), at the age of seven months, Miranda told Ray she was ready to have another girl.
    “All I want to do is make princesses, Ray! I want a houseful of princesses!”
    Within two months she was pregnant, but when the child was born, a healthy and happy little boy they eventually named J.J. (which didn’t stand for anything), Miranda fell into a bout of postpartum depression so deep she could barely see the sun. For the first four weeks, Miranda could not bring herself to hold her baby boy for longer than a few minutes at a time. Six years later she still found it difficult to speak to him in anything longer than curt, declarative sentences. When their second son, Junior Miller, was born fourteen months later, her despair multiplied exponentially.
    Spending quality time with her sons became a never-ending struggle. Little girls liked shoes, playing dress-up, having their hair and makeup done, things Miranda understood and was good at. Little boys liked frogs and dirt and farting. How could she possibly be expected to relate to that?
    Every now and then, Miranda’s pastor would drop by to check in on her. They’d sit on the screened-in back porch and chat. She’d offer him a piece of pie and a glass of sweet tea, and he’d attempt to explain how the mother/son relationship is one of the most sacred in all humankind, using Jesus and Mary as his primary example.
    “First of all,” she said, laughing good-naturedly, “I dare you to spend ten minutes with these boys and then compare them to Jesus. I’m kidding, of course. They’re good boys, and their father looks out for them. Not unlike Jesus. And my mother watches them a lot, too. So they’re fine. I’m not worried.”
    The young pastor smiled and sipped his tea, and tried to explain that Miranda was neglecting sixty-six percent of her children.
    “Well, first of all, I wouldn’t say I’m neglecting them,” she said. “I love them. I love them more than anything. They’re my children, for heaven’s sake. I just don’t have anything in common with them.” And besides, she thought, when Brixton is born, that number will drop to fifty percent, which is probably pretty close to the national average.
    When the ultrasound technician pointed out Brixton’s blurry gray fetal vagina, Miranda practically leapt from the table. She rushed home, dragged Bailey’s old baby pageant outfits from the attic, and meticulously laid them out on every available surface of the living room. Most of the outfits, like the furniture they lay on, were shamefully outdated and needed to be replaced, but just seeing the tiny dresses with their starched crinolines and ruffled bloomers, or the hand-stitched beadwork on the Indian headpiece and matching sequined leggings, made Miranda giddy for the first time in years.
    Mistakes had been made with Bailey, obviously, but Miranda was determined not to repeat them with Brixton. And if that meant starting in utero with a strict meal schedule, then so be it.
    “If Brixton learns in the womb that meals are to be eaten at specific times,” she explained to Ray, “then maybe she’ll be born with the nutritional discipline that Bailey obviously lacks.”
    Ray just nodded. He’d learned to not question Miranda’s plans for the girls.
    “Mom, what are you doing?”
    Miranda jumped and grabbed her tummy.
    “Oh, my God, Bailey!” Miranda said, catching her breath. “Don’t sneak up like that, sweetheart. You’re going to give Mommy a miscarriage.”
    The nine-year-old stood in the doorway and shrugged. “Sorry.”
    Her honey blond hair hung in front of her face like a veil, and she made no effort to move it. The pink Juicy sweat suit she’d won at last year’s Pride of Paducah Pageant (Paducah,