Last One Out … or Eve in a Nutshell
Hi, I’m Eve Brown-Waite, the last of the new Debutantes … finally taking the stage. And this is a picture of me building a stage (well, a barn actually). Since you already have that nice one up at the top with me looking all Debutante-y, I thought I should let you see what I really look like. Not glamorous at all!
I do own a tiara though, and am thrilled to finally have an excuse to wear it. But I have to admit I was a little disappointed to learn there is no actual ball. Maybe that’s a good thing, because if there were I’d probably step on everyone’s toes, drink too much and end up dancing on top of the table. (Oh, wait a minute, that was my wedding!)
I live in a lovely, very green corner of Western Massachusetts although I grew up in New Yawk (the city) and then moved to upstate New York. I went to college at the State University of New York at Oneonta (school cheer: “Give me an O … Give me an N … Give me a beer!”) and I liked everything there so much – the college, the town, the beer – that I stayed for seven years. I eventually joined the Peace Corps, met my husband, and followed him – literally – around the world until we landed in bucolic New England, which I guess is kind of a cross between the hustling metropolis of NYC and the malaria infested bush of northern Uganda. It’s nice here: there are no landmines.
St. John and I have been married for 17 years (he seems to have forgiven me for dancing on the table and I forgave him for schlepping me into someone else’s civil war). I call him St. John because he really is that good (and because I think he doesn’t like it when I call him “the live organ donor”). We have two (sometimes three) kids. We made two of them ourselves, with stuff we had lying around the house (one in Uganda and the other in Uzbekistan) and the third is our god-daughter who followed us home from Uzbekistan. We really wanted to keep her but she went off to Brown University (“Give me a B … Give me an R … Give me a protractor and a calculus book!” You see it’s just not the same!). When she graduated she got a job in San Francisco where she will no doubt whiz her way up the corporate ladder, become rich, and take over the world. It certainly takes some of the pressure off the other two kids.
My book is FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA, and yes it’s the story of me following St. John around the third world and I promise you, it’s all true and it’s really funny. One day I’m going to write some fiction, but I keep writing non-fiction because, let’s face it, life is hilarious if you just squint at it the right way.
I am thrilled to be at the ball at last and thrilled to be sharing this year with all of you. So pass the champagne, get up on the table and let’s dance!
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