Description: Will Eve get a second chance at the mock audition for the Miss Teenager pageant? It's the dashing Glenn Sabine who points out her potential, but Eve finds it hard to believe after her humiliating failure to produce the right stuff as Shakespeare's Juliet.
The Miss Teenager Pageant. PART 20.
Even as the room service concierge wheeled in a beautifully decorated tray of drinks, Eve was gearing up for the rejection of her life. More than anything in the world, she just wanted one more shot at becoming Miss Teenager. When trying to impress the head honcho of the whole shebang had quickly gone south, she had fallen to pieces right there in his hotel room. It was like reeling from an open-handed smack upside the noodle.
Maybe she could choose a different talent to be judged on apart from acting. The only other thing she was good at was that trick where she bent the tip of her ear, balanced a piece of chocolate on top, and flicked the thing clear across the room, but that was in the third grade and she doubted if the Miss Teenager judges would be impressed by that one.
She was out of practice anyway. The last time she had tried it, she had been aiming for Deirdre’s open mouth, but instead of landing on target, it had sailed wide and hit Ms. Beamer smack dab in the left eye. To this day, she could still hear her teacher’s “Miss Jones!!” reverberating throughout the empty hallways of Devon Elementary.
No, it would have to be acting, but would she get another chance?
Ironically, it was the head honcho of the pageant himself who once again came to her rescue and emboldened her not to give up.
Glenn Sabine’s words soothed her anxious heart. “If I doubted for one second that besides a great natural beauty,” he began, “you have a distinct flair for the theater, Miss Jones, I would tell you, ‘Go back to selling gloves, or bags, or whatever…’ but that would be depriving the world of a rich reward.”
As she gripped her carton of milk, complete with two straws, Eve was mesmerized by every word that proceeded from his mouth. Was he actually saying these things about her? What potential in her could he see that she couldn’t?
As if he could read her mind, he answered her unspoken question. “…the reward of your unmined genius.”
She was completely spellbound, yet she didn’t deserve that second chance and she knew it.
“Therefore…” Mr. Sabine continued.
This was it, the rejection that Eve had been waiting for.
“I, Glenn Sabine, not in my role as Chairman of the ‘Miss Teenager’ board, but as an artist… “
Here it comes.
“…am about to make you an offer!” he said.
An… an offer?
Gulp! The sound of Mr. Sabine’s assistant swallowing his shot of whiskey shook her from what was certain to be nothing short of the longest daydream in her young adult life.
What sort of offer did he have in mind, Eve wondered?
