Friends with Benefits

Chapter 1

1

Evelyn Bloom knows she isn’t famous, but it still stings when press photographers lower their cameras the moment she and her sister step onto the red carpet outside the Dolby Theatre. She’d paid for an Uber Black from Pasadena to Hollywood and those thirty-three minutes in a BMW X7 cost as much as the monthly payment on Phoebe. So the least she could get is a photo of her stepping out of the black SUV with the Getty Images watermark stamped across her face. Phoebe is a ten-year-old Mazda CX-3 that she loves with her whole heart, but Imogen called it too embarrassing for the occasion .

Now inside the theater, Evie’s phone vibrates with the Uber receipt.

She winces.

Imogen.

Evie follows her to the line for the bathroom, grateful to Imogen for escorting her without even asking. Living with a chronic illness that fucks with your GI tract, for Evie, means a mandatory bathroom stop before any major event. Sometimes two. Just in case. Jules, her therapist, would ask Evie to interrogate if it’s Crohn’s or the anxiety of a Crohn’s flare that triggers this. Does it matter? Evie doesn’t think so.

“How are you feeling?” Imogen asks, examining her lipstick in a compact as the line moves at a glacial pace.

A bit nauseous, if she’s being honest. “Fine.”

“I, for one, am kind of obsessed with being the plus-one tonight.”

From Uber Black requests to being on a first-name basis with the theater’s security team, Imogen Bloom knows how to navigate a premiere. She works in casting for an unscripted series and networks her ass off, attending premieres and galas and wherever her boss sends her to recruit C-list celebrities and influencers. But Imogen is off duty tonight. She’s here with Evie.

For Evie.

“Gen?”

Imogen spins 180 degrees and squeals. “Portia? Oh my God, you look incredible.”

Portia Devereaux, a supporting cast member in Ginger —the film premiering here tonight—is one of the few reality television contestants who successfully pivoted to a film career. Imogen discovered them when she was a wide-eyed baby intern in the casting department for Big Brother , and Portia’s success on the show directly led to a full-time job offer for Imogen upon graduating from UCLA.

“Working?” Portia assumes.

Imogen shakes her head, blond curls bouncing around her shoulders as she loops her arm through Evie’s. “Nope! Evie is one of the Foley artists who worked on Ginger .”

Portia’s eyes meet hers. “Amazing.”

Evie’s natural instinct is to downplay what a major deal this is. “I interned for the studio during post. Right place, right time.”

Imogen rolls her eyes. “Annaliese had a scheduling conflict, so Evie stepped in and did the Foley for Ginger . She learned the dances in an afternoon and—”

A stall door swings open, and Evie’s next in line, so she bolts, desperate to remove herself from the conversation before the obvious next question: What are you working on now? Because this night is a total fluke. Evie Bloom is not a working Foley artist. Yet. She spends her days working for a media conglomerate, editing podcasts for former reality dating show contestants turned influencers.

It’s not a dream job, but the benefits are good.

Done in the bathroom, she exits the stall and washes her hands next to Zendaya, who says, “Excuse me,” as she reaches across her for a paper towel and it takes every ounce of restraint for Evie not to blurt out I love you . Well. Even if tonight isn’t a turning point that marks the beginning of a long and successful career, at least Zendaya spoke to her.

“Ev. Zendaya spoke to you ,” Imogen says as they take their seats in the mezzanine.

Evie knew that a biopic about Ginger Rogers was going to be a big deal—big-budget movies about Old Hollywood are certified Oscar porn. But it’s one thing to know it and another to see the caliber of celebrities that showed up to the premiere.

“I just. I cannot believe that the Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman is going to hear my talented sister dance,” Imogen says.

“And she won’t even know it.”

It’s the truth. She’s not the star of the movie. No. Evie Bloom is not the face. She’s every step on concrete, on linoleum, on carpet. She’s the cadence of Ginger’s movements—the buoyant beat that accompanies running into the arms of any one of her five husbands, the jump of joy when she lands her first film, the crisp, clean shuffles that define her as a tap legend. All the sounds that make a movie magic.

In Ginger , Evie is a part of that magic.

Not the face, but the feet.

She loves that magic.

Evie inherited her fascination with sound from Grandma Pep, the beloved host and executive producer of Some Pep in Your Step , a local radio show that featured anyone with an interesting “happy-making” story. Peppy Bloom was on the air for over thirty-five years. Some of Evie’s most formative childhood memories are summer days in the studio with her grandmother, where she asked the audio engineers endless questions and absorbed so many lessons on how to tell a story not just with words but with sounds.

It was one of Grandma Pep’s stories that directly led to her becoming a storyteller with sounds herself. One blistering summer day, she went with her grandmother to interview a team of Foley artists who worked on the Paramount lot. Evie was nine and watched with wide-eyed wonder as these people explained to Grandma Pep that their jobs were to create the sound effects that make a movie—and they used the most unexpected objects. She learned that a celery stick can mimic the sound of a broken bone, that gloves with paper clips on the fingertips are adequate dog paws, that a hand in a jar of mayonnaise is a kiss.

They create the sounds that breathe life into a film , Grandma Pep explained as her audio engineer recorded a Foley demo for the segment. Evie’s mind near exploded watching them use a bathtub to create the sounds of a boat cutting through water. She remembers that day so vividly—the smell of mayonnaise, the snap of celery, the awe of it all. Afterward, her ears started paying extra close attention at the movies, trying to guess the truth behind the sounds she heard.

Eighteen years later, Evie is seated among the stars at a premiere for a film that she breathed life into.

Well.

In the mezzanine above the stars.

Imogen’s elbow nudges her. “It’s still pretty early. You should be out there mingling!”

“I hate mingling.”

“Evie.”

Imogen has always made it look so easy—mingling, networking, any word that can be defined as speaking to strangers. Evie loves everything about the work that is being a Foley artist, but she really hates the people-ing of it all, the reality that opportunities depend on it. An incredible portfolio is useless if no one will take the time to listen to it. Objectively, Imogen is right. She should be mingling.

Of course, she doesn’t tell her sister this.

Or admit that she doesn’t know why small talk is so easy for Imogen yet so impossible for her.

Instead, she sticks out her tongue.

Imogen mirrors the expression, then continues, “Portia is chill. They’re also blowing up in a major way, and I set up the intro and… you totally flopped.”

“We were in the bathroom, Gen.”

“So?”

“It didn’t exactly seem like the time to pitch myself.”

“Maybe not, but you didn’t have to downplay your contribution to Ginger either.”

Evie didn’t downplay anything. It was true, what she said to Portia, that the opportunity was a happenstance of right place, right time. Annaliese Fallon, who stars as Ginger, was meant to dub herself—to come into the Foley studio and record her dances in sync with video. Just like any other sound effect, adding the taps in postproduction guarantees a crisper, cleaner sound and allows more control to the mixers in charge of layering all the sounds together. But then a scheduling conflict sent Annaliese to her next role, on Broadway, earlier than anticipated, so she never had the chance to record the dances that she’d flawlessly executed on-screen.

And the studio was fucked.

Ross Snyder, Evie’s boss, scrambled in frantic search of a solution. Put tap shoes on his hands and winged it. The taps were in sync but wrong. A shuffle that should have been a scuffle, a flap that should have been a ball change. To the untrained ear of the general public, Ross’s hand taps would suffice. But this was a love letter to Ginger Rogers. A movie for dancers.

And Evie’s first dream, before Grandma Pep had spectacularly shattered the illusion of sound, was dance.

I’m a dancer , she told Ross, her voice small and palatable. I can do it.

Ross cocked an eyebrow, skeptical.

Ross is an asshole.

Give me the tapes and a day.

Ross sighed, conceding that he had nothing to lose.

Evie didn’t tell Ross that she was a dancer, past tense, or that she’d have to tear her closet apart to find the worn BLOCHs that she hadn’t put on since high school. She didn’t tell Ross that she wasn’t sure if her weakened ankle could handle the choreography. Nope. When Ross Snyder looked up at Evie with tap shoes for hands, Evie saw an opportunity—to prove her worth, to get a Foley credit in a major theatrical release, to dance again.

She took it.

Of course she did.

She learned the choreography and perfected it until her feet bled.

After the recording session, her calves burned. Her ankle screamed enough . And Evie loved every minute of that day. She is so drawn to Foley because of the physicality, the musicality, the rhythm required. Being in the studio, Evie is almost a dancer again, and it felt incredible to actually dance, to be Ginger’s feet.

Thank fucking God , Ross said when Evie played back her work for him.

It’s the closest she ever got to a thank-you from Ross Snyder.

“Well. I tried,” Imogen says with a shrug, then pulls out her phone and starts typing, her eyebrows rising in the amused expression that is for one person only. “It’s Sloane, asking if I need anything from Costco and… since when are we Costco people ? How did this happen?”

“You moved in together after three months like a sapphic cliché, Gen. Of course you’re Costco people.”

Imogen flips her off. “Valid.”

Evie laughs, then reaches for her phone after it vibrates with a new text:

You’re Ginger tonight. I’m so proud of you, Evelyn.

It squeezes her heart, those nine words from her best friend.

“Theo?” Imogen assumes.

Evie nods.

“I sort of feel bad. He would’ve been a better plus-one.” She checks her teeth one final time for lipstick. “Just in terms of, like, appreciating the dance of it all. I would say sorry for calling dibs as your blood, but I’m not. So.”

Evie snorts. “You’re a great date. And anyway, it’s a school night.”

Theo Cohen— Mr. Cohen—would never be out past 10:00 p.m. on a school night. He has twenty children that he’s responsible for in the morning, teaching the next generation multiplication and assigning book reports and doing experiments to learn about weather systems that don’t exist in Southern California.

“Bitch, I knew you invited him first.”

Evie laughs because of course her extra ticket was Imogen’s first, always, forever.

But she’s just too easy to mess with.

Anyway, Evie will watch Ginger with Theo from the comfort of her couch when it’s on Netflix next week—when they can rewind and rewatch and analyze the dance routines like they’re seventeen again, in search of inspiration for their next duet. If it’s even good. Evie’s feet had to be approved by so many sets of ears—Ross’s, the sound mixer’s, the music supervisor’s, the director’s, Annaliese Fallon’s. Still, she must approve her work with her own ears before she allows the person whose opinion she cares about most in this world to listen, too.

She rereads Theo’s text, then tucks her phone into her clutch as the lights dim and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion roars. Evie’s feet are the opening beat. Ginger is rehearsing one of her routines with Fred Astaire in Swing Time . Annaliese Fallon looks incredible. Evie sounds incredible. And for the next two hours, she’s lost in the beautiful, intricate sound design. Sound is taken for granted, but Evie loves the art, the science, the magic of shaping an audience’s experience through what is not seen but heard. It’s kind of blowing her mind, that every time the music starts and the dancing begins, everyone is seeing Annaliese but hearing her. Evie’s art and talent are an integral part of this movie.

It’s an indescribable feeling.

It is purpose.

A sort of fulfillment that is notably absent when she opens Pro Tools every day and works on the latest podcast for the reality dating show Ever After . She loves these podcasts as a listener—their smart, feminist, intersectional takes on a franchise that refuses to progress beyond the patriarchal foundation upon which it’s built. But spending forty-plus hours a week in front of a screen editing them?

It. Is. Torture.

Evie isn’t meant to sit in front of a computer screen.

She’s meant to move.

“Evie,” Imogen whispers, dabbing a tissue to her eyes as the credits start to roll. “Holy shit.”

Evie squeezes Imogen’s hand.

“I felt you,” she continues. “Like, I closed my eyes and we were at a competition again.”

Imogen danced, too, following in her big sister’s tap shoes. But she danced for the fun of it, for the costumes, for the unrequited crushes she always had on other dancers. Dance never became Imogen’s identity. It was simply a thing she did, not who she was.

Dance is who Evie was.

Until she wasn’t.

Until she couldn’t .

Evie and Imogen stay glued in their seats for the credits to see the name Evelyn Bloom under the Foley department. It’s the credit that Evie believes will jump-start her career, the credit she listed on the union application that’s currently pending. If approved, she can begin to take on more work. In the union, she’ll be paid guaranteed minimums and not be lowballed as most early-career freelancers are. In the union, she’ll have health benefits that will free her from the Pro Tools life. Benefits that cover the appointments, the screenings, the medications necessary to manage her chronic illness.

The credits roll.

Evie waits to see her name.

Waits.

And waits.

And—

“What the fuck?” Imogen snarls at the credit.

Foley artist: Ross Snyder

As quickly as it appears, it’s gone, and Evie’s eyes sting as if she’s been slapped. She knows Ross is an asshole, but she thought he was at least an asshole with integrity. But of course, he’s just another man in the industry more than happy to take credit for a woman’s work. She bled for Ginger . She deserved this credit.

She needed it.

Her union application is going to be rejected without it.

Evie’s stomach cramps, a dull pain shooting through her lower abdomen, reminding her that the dream that felt so close to possible just two hours ago is once again very much not.

“Ev—”

“Can we go home?”

Ross just… erased her from Ginger . Tonight was supposed to be good. Working for Ross Snyder was the worst six months of Evie’s life, but tonight was meant to be proof that his exploiting her passion for unpaid labor was worth it.

Evie exits the theater biting the inside of her cheek so she doesn’t burst into furious tears.

Fuck Ross.

Fuck passions.

Fuck.

This.