Description: In the first episode of the Miss Teenager Pageant, Eve Jones is dropped off at home by her best friends, filled with apprehension that she must tell her family her big secret. Today feels like the first day of the rest of her life.
PART 1. The Miss Teenager Pageant.
Have you ever teetered on the edge of making a crucial decision and felt all alone? Like you were walking on a tightrope between two steep precipices without a balance pole to keep you steady and you just couldn’t help but look down? It’s not necessarily worrying about falling that paralyzes you with fear. It’s looking down.
That was exactly how Eve felt when she stepped from the car and gazed toward the house. Her heart hammered, her pulse raced. This was not the way she had planned to do it. Shoved to the front by peer pressure, that’s what this was.
Shorty sat at the wheel and grinned almost mockingly. “You’ll have to tell them sooner or later, Eve – so get it over with!”
Eve’s mind was already inside, imagining how the conversation might play out. The churning in her stomach reminded her that the task ahead was treacherous. What would she say?
“I suppose so…” she replied back hesitatingly.
Eve exhaled hard to calm her nerves. Her head whirled back and forth from the house to the car. Shorty was here. So was Deirdre. They might be of some help, if only for moral support.
“You wouldn’t want to come with me, would you?” Eve inquired. “Maybe I’ll do better with an audience?”
Shorty was already pulling out of the driveway. He shouted back over his shoulder, “No, thank you, pet. This is strictly a family affair – and I’m not even a kissing cousin. Ta-ta.”
“And you call yourselves friends,” Eve muttered as Shorty’s MG roadster disappeared down the driveway.
She would have to do this alone. But alone, she would.
