Description: With Eve on the edge of her seat, Glenn Sabine prepares to make her an offer she can't refuse.
The Miss Teenager Pageant. PART 21.
Like a cement truck with a flat tire careening toward a baby carriage, Eve had braced for the worst. She knew that her reading of Juliet had gone so horrendously wrong that Glenn Sabine, the host of the Miss Teenager pageant, would have no choice but to send her packing from the hotel room awash in tears. Instead, to Eve’s shocking dismay, Mr. Sabine not only complimented her on her potential talent as an actress, but also flipped the cards and said that he would like to present to her an “offer.”
With milk carton in hand, only partially sipped through the double-straw, Eve was on the edge of her seat. What offer would he make? What could he possibly give her after such an atrocious display of her poor acting ability? Nonetheless, he had said it was an offer. She could hardly believe her ears, but her heart was having something to say about it, hammering in her chest as she leaned forward with breathless anticipation.
“I, Glenn Sabine,” he announced as if an entire live television audience were watching, “offer you – Eve Jones, the poor talent I possess, to train you in the art of the theater.”
Eve sprang out of the arm chair like a firework had exploded in the seat cushion. “Oh, Mr. Sabine!” she cried. “Do you actually mean it?”
Cool, calm, and collected: three C’s that defined a legend, or at least the look of one. “I am a man of honor, Miss Jones,” he declared, oozing the three C’s. “And I respond to a challenge. I will be your mentor – you my little trilby.”
This was too good to be true! His little trilby! Wait, wasn’t a trilby a hat? Either way, Eve wouldn’t be just any hat. She would be his hat! Eve was so beside herself with joyous hysteria that she wanted to dive into Mr. Sabine’s arms and tackle him right then and there! Her dream had been just to compete in the Miss Teenager pageant. This was far and beyond anything in her wildest imagination – an offer to be mentored in the theater!
“But, Mr. Sabine, sir,” interrupted Sabine’s assistant named Pike-something. “Your time is money! You mustn’t forget that.”
“Ah! How dense of me!” cried Sabine, slapping his forehead with his palm and pitching his head back. “Did I forget to acquaint you, dear child, with the terms?”
There were terms, Eve thought? What sort of conditions would she ever be able to promise in return for being a trilby to a master in the theater like Glenn Sabine?
