JESUS NATION SEX REBEL, mini-chapter 48

48. THE DINNE

They had dinner at an Indian restaurant, a favorite of Adam’s. He had chicken, she had fish. Adam talked excitedly about his program. Eve felt morose. She didn’t know it, but she didn’t want someone she knew to suddenly have a great success. Not in front of her very eyes. She wondered if she wanted to continue with Adam.
“You didn’t tell me you were getting a TV program, did you?”

Adam found her response to his enthusiasm remarkably cool. He did not know her well enough to know that she was envious. Eve was competitive. The really competitive kind, who competed with those closest to her and resented them when they enjoyed a success that she didn’t, and who was blind to this aspect of her personality. It was one of the reasons that her marriage had fallen apart. It was also why her friendship with Rachel continued. She was happy to remain friends with someone who wasn’t any competition to her, as Rachel had been before her reclassification.

“I was going to tell you,” said Adam.

“I had to find out at the party, didn’t I?” Eve sounded quite upset. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“We hardly knew each other.”

“Do we know each other now?”

“Would you like to be on my program? Ezra wants controversy. Fire. Conflict. If you can have a controversy with me here and now about nothing at all, you’d be great on TV.”

Eve laughed. Adam wasn’t the pushover she thought.

“Is there enough controversy in your field?” she asked.

“An inordinate amount. You should’ve been there when I started. I can easily recreate the early squabbles.”

“When will you start?”

“A month from now.”

Eve felt more morose.

“I can have overseas guests,” Adam said.

“What?”

“Yes, I will have to travel overseas to recruit them. I’ll get a passport.”

A passport. One of the most precious possessions. Only allowed to Blesseds. Now Eve was about to fall into a total depression.

“I can take you,” Adam said.

“I don’t have a passport. I’ll never get permission.”

“I can get permission for you. I asked about it.”

Eve’s spirits lifted sky-high. “You asked?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, I specifically asked with you in mind.”

“How Jesus sweet of you.”

Eve lifted her glass and drank her wine down in one gulp. “We have something to celebrate, don’t we? My oh my.”

She had never been overseas. She had dreamed about it, but never been. London, Paris, Rome. She looked at Adam with shiny eyes.

“Let’s settle the bill and go home,” she said.