Description: With Pike Setter in seemingly firm control over crushing Eve’s hopes of Miss Teenager triumph, Julie is on a mission to stop him by going straight to the source: his boss.
Bright Lights, Big Dreams. PART 7.
Juliet Jones was a woman on a mission.
She could have stayed at the Hotel Star all day, drowning herself in one form of liquid beverage or another at the hotel bar scene, wallowing in self-pity and growing antagonism toward the man who had caused all this raucous in the first place. But that would have been way out of character for the conservative mayor of Devon.
She could have called the NYPD, but since the misdemeanor was hardly a blip on the law’s radar, she figured they would have laughed in her face. It was the 1960s, after all, and men like Pike Setter were still highly favored in he-said-she-said cases. Plus, he was the one with the claw marks on the face. Hardly the evidence in her favor.
No, if she had any hope of turning the situation around for herself and her sister, she had to do something drastic. She had to talk to Glenn Sabine in person. Up until this point, she had seen Sabine as the enemy and Pike as the hero, saving Eve’s reputation and the contest from Glenn’s imminent fraud. But after what had just occurred, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that maybe she had gotten it all wrong. Maybe it was the chain-smoking, fast-talking, deal-swindling Pike who had been the villain all along. The problem was, he currently appeared to be holding all the aces when it came to stopping Eve’s hopes and dreams of Miss Teenager triumph. But she had a plan.
For once she was grateful that another imbecilic cab driver had bent the throttle at pedal-to-the-metal speed to get her to the site of the Miss Teenager Contest in less than three minutes flat. Springing out of the cab and staggering in the street to get her balance, she rushed over to the back stage entrance of the theater.
“A man as mean and frustrated as Pike Setter,” Julie thought to herself as she ran, “could ruin Eve’s chances. Unless I get to Glenn Sabine first.”
And wouldn’t she know it? At the door labeled “Back Stage Door” in block letters stood a quintessential stereotypical security guard in full garb, donning even a little police hat that made him look almost important.
He held up his hand as she approached. “You got a special permit, lady?”
“No,” she panted, “I mean, I’m the sister of one of the contestants and…”
“We got strict orders,” he said. “No relatives permitted back stage. Sorry, miss.”
Julie was suddenly a powder keg ready to blow. If Pike Setter and his megalomaniacal ways were not nearly enough to dissuade her from giving in, some doorman in a swank security uniform wouldn’t even come close. She had already demonstrated her superior might in the use of the five-finger tiger claw across the cheek to Punk Setter. Now Joe Security was about to get a taste.
Rearing back like a brontosaurus in heat, she clenched her fists and shouted in a voice that even she did not recognize. “I’ve just got to get in there!”
