6/7 (Eva)

Part I

One hot summer’s day in West Bourbon County, Eva looked up at her big sister, Scarlett, with bewildered puppy-dog eyes. College. Her big sister was going to go to college. No one in her entire family had ever gone to college. Eva was so proud of her big sister, and as the days got closer and closer to when Scarlett finally was going to leave West Bourbon County, Eva found herself more and more anxious. Her anxiety was a mixture of pride, second-place esteem mentality, and competitiveness. She also found herself, incidentally, slightly out of place as she struggled to find her identity (she never did end up finding it, but we’ll read about that later). Eva’s sister had passed the benchmark and now what was Eva supposed to do?

Their parents were naturally extremely warm and welcoming; they loved each of the two girls for the individuals they were and there was never any comparison in their eyes. In Eva’s eyes, however, this meant that her parents had relatively low expectations for her. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, actually, because it made Eva grow up with an incredible drive and motivation to do just as well as Scarlett.

And that’s precisely what happened. When it came time for Eva to go to high school, she went in with the idea cemented in her mind that Scarlett had succeeded with flying colors with her 3.2 GPA. All Eva then wanted was a 3.2. High school was tough for Eva- there was no question about it. She had naturally been the more social of the two sisters, and she came to the harsh realization during her freshman year that maintaining any kind of social life was a full time job for a 15-year old girl. The newest fashion, the new mindset, the subtleties of working your way up the social chain, the fine line of being popular with the boys while at the same time not coming off the wrong way to the girls…. Eva could barely keep her head above water during her freshman year. By the end of it, her report card indeed made her parents proud, but it just wasn’t good enough for her. She needed that 3.2.

Two things happened by Christmas Break of her sophomore year: in chronological order, Eva learned that she was to become an aunt. The details at first were a little vague, but Scarlett was definitely pregnant. The second big event was that Eva was pulling a solid 2.75. Again, this was absolutely fine as far as everybody else was concerned. Why do any better? West Bourbon County was the kind of place where everyone knew where they would end up even before they started. As far as her grades were concerned, her current situation still wasn’t good enough. Eva needed to switch gears; she would do whatever it took to get her 3.2.

During the two-week Christmas break, Eva came to the rather mature realization that in order to accomplish her goal, she would have to give up something else. By the time school started again, she started the habit of spending more evenings at home studying and ignoring the text messages from her girlfriends. They would only slow her down. For the first week or so, this sudden antisocial behavior was acceptable in her clique because she made the excuse “my phone was broken,” followed by “the moron at the shop lost it.”

As is natural in high school, the girls expelled Eva from their group. They gossiped behind her back, saying that she was a bookworm and a slut because she was just trying to get the handsome math teacher to notice her. No matter. Eva was glad to be let go; there was less in the way of her goal.

Somewhere along the way, Eva’s drive and motivation began to spark a tiny flame of darkness inside her. She knew she was capable of doing just as well as anyone else, but that wasn’t good enough. Eva was also coming to know how good it felt to be better than everyone else, and this fruit was just too sweet to turn away.

Towards the end of her senior year, Eva had surpassed her Scarlett’s 3.2 with a 3.44 and set a new family record. This was trivial, however; to Eva, this wasn’t about greatness: it was about outdoing her sister. Prom was also coming up, and although Eva didn’t particularly care about the dance itself, there was one thing she wanted to take care of: the quarterback of the football team had clearly had his eye on Eva’s ex-best friend. That just wouldn’t do for Eva- that girl needed to be punished for her behavior a few years back. Stealing the date was easy enough. She even let him have sex with her in his car after the dance.

Despite her path through high school, college had no appeal for Eva. She knew Scarlett had made it there and frankly, Eva knew she could do better if she wanted to. No. She wanted something else. Something greater.

Next stop: California.

Part II

While Eva knew she was a little in over her head once she got there, she wouldn’t admit it. She decided to get settled in by working at her uncle’s restaurant. Her uncle, Tim, had been living out in California for the past fifteen years or so working up to a managerial position at one of Anaheim’s finest dining establishments. With the bit of money she had saved up, Eva was able to put a down payment on an apartment she found online, rooming with an intimidatingly beautiful young woman named Gaëlle. The very next day, Eva put on her prettiest face and went to her uncle’s restaurant, The Pearl, to meet him for lunch. Lunch was quite impressive, and The Pearl was certainly the nicest place at which Eva had ever eaten. She and Tim decided that she would start training as a waitress the very next day.

Part III

Right around this time, we start to see a further darkening in Eva. She was no longer the puppy-eyed little girl with a charming, small-town accent. Eva was now a young woman with a malicious habit. Whatever it was that sparked her drive and motivation on that hot summer day back in West Bourbon County, it was something that she couldn’t control anymore. In fact, it controlled Eva. She no longer wanted what others had; she wanted others not to have… at all costs. That's why she began sleeping with her roommate's boss, Paul: she knew that her roommate had had her eye on him for one reason or another. She considered all this a healthy competitiveness; it frightened others, however, because they had never actually seen such a high level of malicious jealousy.

The weeks flew by. Since Eva had (at one point in her life) been something of a social butterfly, she knew how to get along with people. More than getting along with them, however, Eva was particularly successful at manipulating them, their thoughts and ideas, and even their moods. Because of all this, she left work every day with more than twice the amount in tips as the next highest-earning waitress. While this was nice, it no longer interested her. She became complacent as a waitress, and soon felt like there was no competition; there were no other coworkers left to beat. Eva had hit a sort of irritating glass ceiling.

During all this, there had been one thing that kept eating at her. Like her ex-clique in high school, Eva’s ties with her family back home were only slowing her down. The thing that she couldn’t shake was her uncle. It started with his accent; it still reminded her of her upbringing, and that just wouldn’t do: he was one more person that she needed to outdo.

One day towards the end of that summer, Eva waited on a particular customer who caught her eye for some reason. There was something about this young man that intrigued her; she didn’t know what he was after, but she knew that she had never seen such drive in anyone besides herself. Perhaps she had seen him before..? He seemed to recognize her. When he left her a four-cent tip, Eva saw that as an excuse to follow him into the parking lot and see what was going on.

The young man–who’s name turned out to be Wayne– was hesitant at first, but Eva pulled out her charm and disarmed him. With a little coercion, she got him to tell her what he was actually after. Eva grinned as she saw this as a perfect opportunity to accomplish her own new goals. She realized that as the head waitress, she would be a shoe-in for the manager’s position… if only the job were to open up.

Eva would never ask Wayne why he had it out to destroy Tim; she didn’t care. And Wayne would never ask Eva who would replace Tim; he didn’t care. Their mutual interest lay in seeing Tim lose his position as manager.

Part IV

The plan was set. The bomb was going to go off on the Saturday before Labor Day. It wasn’t a real bomb, of course, but in fact was something much more destructive to a high-class restaurant such as The Pearl. Wayne did all the plotting and calculating and Eva was the inside-man.

At approximately six-thirty in the evening on the Saturday before Labor Day, The Pearl was forced to close down early when several customers found dead mice all over the establishment. Eva acted surprised (although she had gone so far as to advise Wayne on the most strategic drop points).

That evening, the California state health department had The Pearl shut down for an entire week. That evening Tim, as manager, was held responsible for the company’s loss of over forty-five thousand dollars in revenue.