Longlist – 2026 Gooseberry Pie Annual Writing Competition
by Bethany Bruno
By the time Sherry Velasco pinned on her Miss Hibiscus Queen sash behind the VFW hall in Panama City, sweat had soaked the back of her dress, two blisters had risen above the straps of her borrowed heels, and her mother had called from the bingo hall to say she’d sold the window unit for quick cash, which explained why Sherry’s curled hair had already gone soft and wild in the April damp.
Things got worse under the lights when the strap on her swimsuit gave way during the Florida Funwear walk, one heel flew off and landed in a retired dentist’s shrimp cocktail, and she had to answer the emcee’s question about her future with one shoe on, one hand clamped to her chest, and three fresh mosquito bites burning along her shoulder.
When she slipped backstage to quit, cheeks hot and eyes stinging, she found the favorite, all frosted lipstick and sprayed curls, kissing Mrs. Clevenger, the used-car sponsor’s wife, beside a stack of folding tables and a cardboard pirate left over from last year’s seafood festival.
Before Sherry could ease back out, Mr. Clevenger pushed through the curtain carrying a tray of mini key lime pies, took one look, and said, “Oh Lawd,” just before the tray slid from his hands and sent whipped cream, tin pans, and one loose false eyelash skidding across the floor into the Little Miss girls lined up by the stage steps.
By the time the deputy came in from the mullet festival parking detail, the favorite had run off barefoot with Mrs. Clevenger in the sponsor’s Thunderbird, two runners-up had been dragged apart by their mothers, and the emcee, dabbing pie from his bow tie, announced that since Sherry was the only finalist still standing in her sash, she was the new Miss Hibiscus Queen of Bay County.
She’d entered for the seventy-five-dollar scholarship and the free buffet plate, but as the tiara slid crooked into her limp hair and the crowd clapped for the one girl nobody had bothered to notice all night, Sherry felt something sweeter than winning: for once, she had not been passed over.
Bethany Bruno is a Floridian author whose writing has appeared in over a hundred literary journals and magazines, including The Sun, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and River Teeth’s Beautiful Things. Learn more at bethanybrunowriter.com.
Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash
