Description: With attraction to Eddie at its peak, Julie accepts his invitation to dinner just before Eve enters her office with big news.
The Miss Teenager Pageant. PART 34.
Juliet Jones stood merely centimeters from Eddie’s charming grin that was seeping into every pore of her skin and trickling into blood vessels that led to the heart. When it arrived, it settled there happily, building a tiny campfire that sent heat to other undisclosed locations of her body.
She had accepted his invitation to dinner in two weeks time. With her schedule filled lock, stock, and barrel with mayoral duties that couldn’t possibly be put off another moment, she had originally declined. Was it his charm, his candor, his extremely dry wit like a glass of Bordeaux? She had to say yes, or regret it. She knew it. He knew it. And he said he could wait until she was freed up. So her final answer came easy.
There could have been a touch, a kiss, something. Anything. The current of attraction that ran between them had become in less than sixty seconds a palpable thing. She was seeing Eddie in a new light. She could tell that he could feel it, too. Then what shocked her the most was his chivalrous conduct as his eyes held hers and he slowly backed toward the door. A grin of respect covered Julie’s face. This was a man who could wait for good things to come.
Just then, with fiery impetuosity, Eve burst through the door almost bowling Eddie over. He stepped back just in time to avoid the letters “Mayor Juliet Jones” from the glass door being tattooed on his cheek. Eve could hardly contain her fanatic exhilaration.
“Julie!” she shouted as she burst into the room. “Hi, Eddie,” she shot politely to acknowledge his presence. “Julie, I’m going!!”
Juliet had no clue what was coming. Whenever Eve said “I’m going!” with such wild hysteria, it could mean any number of things completely inconsequential. Or, to give her the benefit of the doubt, less than .00001% of the time, it was something as urgent as her body language suggested.
“That’s Eve’s shorthand, Eddie,” Julie explained with a dash of sarcasm. “I’m supposed to automatically guess where she’s going, why, and for how long.”
“To New York!!” Eve cried as she flung herself into her sister’s arms. “To be a finalist in the Miss Teenager contest! And for two weeks! Any more questions?”
Julie was taken aback as if struck by a golf ball when you didn’t hear the other player’s “Fore!” Words could barely form themselves on her lips. Ideas could barely come. What… Wh…
“When did all this happen?” asked Julie, gasping for breath.
“Just today,” Eve replied with a wild grin, lifting her arms and dancing around the room in victory. Then she added, “Mr. Sabine says that with my acting ability, it would be a shame to keep me and Hollywood apart much longer!”
A shame indeed, Julie thought. Yes, she was sure that Mr. Sabine had Eve’s best interests at heart when he had given her such an outlandish promise. And a two-week excursion to New York. This guy pulled out all the stops! Oh, what was Julie going to do? If she tried to stop it right here and now, the consequences would be disastrous. Maybe it was time to allow Eve to experience all by herself what and who Glenn Sabine and his crony were really up to.
