Description: While Eve gets ready to hear the terms of her mentorship with Glenn Sabine, Julie and Pops wonder what is taking Eve so long to come home. She has missed a dinner that Julie prepared especially for her.
The Miss Teenager Pageant. PART 22.
It was already 8:05 and night had choked out whatever daylight was remaining over the small town of Devon. Julie was vexed. Eve had missed a glorious chicken and peas that Julie had spent hours of blood, sweat, and tears preparing with her little sister in mind. It was a celebration of sorts for landing an interview with the host of the Miss Teenager pageant.
In some ways, it might have been an apology dinner for not supporting her sister’s passion for the contest as much as she should have from the start. In other ways, she wished Eve might be a little bit more like her, a little more cautious, a little more investigative before jumping into something headlong before realizing only later that there were huge regrets that one could never take back. But that wasn’t Eve’s way and Julie knew it. It was what separated them as sisters.
Then there was the dinner. Julie’s boiled chicken and defrosted frozen peas – one of Eve’s favorites. A generous helping of mashed potatoes and a green salad with tomatoes from Pop’s garden had topped off one of the most delicious meals they had eaten in weeks.
But still no Eve.
“Don’t you think we’d better call the Devon House, Pops?” Juliet asked her father as she washed the dishes, dipping her rubber gloved hands into a sink full of steaming suds.
Pops was rubbing the wet dishes down with a kitchen towel. “Give Eve another half-hour, Julie,” he said contemplatively. “It’s a big day for her. Maybe the biggest so far in her young life.”
Pops had been drying the same dish for the past fifteen minutes. What could have kept Eve, he wondered? It was only supposed to be a short meeting with this Mr. Sabine, wasn’t it? And who was this mysterious ruffian, anyway? If he was so famous, why hadn’t Pops heard of him? With very little prodding, Pops began wondering how many other teenage girls Mr. Sabine was “interviewing” at his hotel room.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Eve’s heart was a rabbit kicking and thumping. The thought of being mentored in the theater by the one and only Glenn Sabine was almost more than she could wrap her mind around. But there was a condition. She would have to abide by certain terms, he had said.
“Terms?” Eve asked innocently. “What terms, Mr. Sabine?”
“Simple,” he replied in that tone of voice that could melt ice cream on summer pavement. “Very simple, Miss Jones.”
