Who: Evangeline Sablier What: Vegas Ahoy Where: Her apartment of hugeness When: A couple of days after the destructofest of Las Vegas Warnings: Some sad, some Evie, some serious need for socks and someone telling her flats are okay too.
When Evie landed in McCarran airport in her father's private jet and was met on the tarmac by a black sedan with tinted windows she was exhausted already. She was wearing a black pantsuit and a pair of black pumps that hurt her feet more and more with every step she took and she was just counting steps trying not to fall. She carried herself confidently as she always did, but this wasn't her normal confidence. This was CEO confidence. It had been eight months since her father had died and seven months and ten days since she took over as CEO of the corporation. She was young, inexperienced, and if her father's closest colleagues hadn't watched her grow up and seen the way Benedict had interacted with his daughter she wouldn't have a chance in the world at succeeding.
Evie was smart and had a good head on her shoulders, but she had a lot to learn. She'd gone from full time student, full time girlfriend, and full time goofball to being in charge of a worldwide corporation that employed over 40,000 people around the globe. Her executive team kept her shielded from criticism and taught her everything they could. She trusted them as much as her father had and was grateful every day that she wasn't going at this alone. But there were certain responsibilities that went with this job, they had annoyed her when her father had to see to them and they annoyed her now that she did. It involved travel and being away from home and crisis management. She had to be the face of this organization, and there was no way out of it. It was still technically interim while she tried to find the perfect replacement. She'd been hoping to choose from a pool of candidates from her father's closest executives but they weren't interested in doing anything but what Benedict wanted. Which was for her to try. So she was trying. For her Papa.
Evie was used to extravagance, her father enjoyed the life he lived and taught her to enjoy it as well. But she didn't think much of it, she liked living a full life in other ways. She was quite happy in a cozy two bedroom house, or the three bedroom old row house she'd just bought with Will in New York. It was perfect for her life, and while they had a nice TV and crazy nice phones and they certainly enjoyed their fair share of travel. She didn't require a driver, and their dishes were mixed and matched from flea markets. They enjoyed occasional bouts of over-indulging but it wasn't gaudy. But the CEO Evangeline...She needed private jets, and black sedans, security the whole nine yards. She still worked out of her father's office, almost nothing had been moved out of place, he was still very much present.
Las Vegas was hot, the people were frantic after what had happened, her instinct was to do her best to help them, even though she was technically here to check on a few business interests. But she wanted to help. Immediately upon arriving at her father's Las Vegas office, which she had never been to, she had almost been ill. It was this way any time she saw a place where her father had spent time that hadn't been touched since his death. Her picture was on his desk, the last notes that he'd written to himself, there were voicemails on his desk phone and things written on his calendar. In her mind she knew he had offices and apaartments all over the place, but eventually she'd run out of new places and that meant she'd run out of new memories. Which probably wasn't healthy but it was the best she had at the moment.
A long day at the office, a few frantic phone calls home when she felt overwhelmed (or even when she just felt whelmed), and she was being driven back to her father's Las Vegas apartment. These were always harder. Everything smelled like him, his clothes were still there, she was going to have to brace herself. But she needed these moments too. Eventually she'd have to do something with all of the properties and all of his belongings. So far she was just letting everything be. Again, not the healthiest, but she didn't know how else to cope.
She stepped inside and was, as per usual, overwhelmed. The apartment had been cleaned regularly, and was so just before her arrival, but she could instantly tell it was a "home" of sorts. Her father and lived here and worked from here. He'd had dates over, and cocktail parties. He'd had business meetings and quiet nights. The house in Paris been the hardest, Evie's childhood home. And the New York and Seattle apartments had been equally awful, but she kept going back to the New York apartment and saying she was "running errands" or some nonsense.
she kicked her uncomfortable shoes off in the entryway, groaning as she did so and wishing for a pair of hugely fluffy socks even though there were heat advisories even this late at night. She quickly changed into shorts and a tee shirt and took her phone out on the balcony. The air was still hot on her skin and the lights from the strip lit up the whole sky. The view was beautiful but she just wanted to close her eyes and wait for her phone to ring. This was her father's home every now and again, and as close as she felt to him being there he'd always told her that home was where the heart is...And hers was a bit too broken to stake a claim here and the bits of it that were still working properly were 3000 miles away in a three story brownstone in the cutest neighborhood she'd ever seen. She knew she could call, but it was after eleven in Las Vegas. Instead she just willed her phone to ring.