Chapter 3
3
Evie sips on matzo ball soup as Jeff Probst extinguishes the flame of Theo’s winner pick with a dimpled smirk.
“Milo is such a little shit,” she says.
“I know. But he used embargo correctly in a sentence.”
She hears the pride in his voice and thinks that school would’ve been a more bearable place if there had been more teachers like Mr. Cohen.
After the eliminated castaway’s inspirational final words, Theo stands and makes his way to the kitchen for seconds. The entire bungalow smells like Lori Cohen’s matzo ball soup, like their childhood. Theo makes it upon request. It’s one of the few meals that’s guaranteed to soothe her stomach when she’s having a Not Great Pain Day. She’s in remission. For now. But stress can trigger a flare. Rage can, too. Evie is stressed and pissed. A terrible combination for her body, despite being in clinical remission for five years—her longest stretch of for now since her diagnosis a decade ago. It’s the forever qualifier with chronic illness. For now. Her case is classified as mild. For now. Her diet and the medication administered by infusion every eight weeks keep the inflammation in her colon at bay. For now.
It used to make her so angry.
It still makes her anxious.
But right now, the soup helps, even if it doesn’t quite taste the same as when Lori made it.
Does it ever?
Theo sinks into the opposite end of the worn jade patent-leather couch. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Fuck Ross!! is the only text that Evie sent Theo about Ginger .
Besides the arson threat she sent to his work email in a moment of impulsive fury.
She places her soup mug on a coaster and turns up the heating pad resting across her stomach. “I have to withdraw my application.”
Theo’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What?”
“I don’t qualify.”
Without a credit on a union project, Evie’s application to IATSE—the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees—is null and void. After everything she put herself through for that film. Evie didn’t just bleed, she danced . Learned complex choreography and let herself love it again. Not the all-consuming love that defined her adolescence, but a quiet maybe I don’t have to let go of this part of me love. It was the first time she dared to let dance back into her heart since she fell. Two months before graduating high school, Evie tumbled out of Theo’s arms, her ankle buckling coming out of a simple lift at her last competition. An accident that not only shattered the future she had imagined for herself, but also led to a diagnosis that explained it all—the fall, the bone-deep exhaustion, the pain that she’d become so used to living with. In the decade since her diagnosis, she’s grieved the reality that audiences will never watch her dance again. In therapy, she’s felt all her furious feelings that a joint had to fracture—that her body had to break —in order for her pain to be taken seriously. Accepted the reality that even with physical therapy, even in remission from Crohn’s , her ankle will never be strong enough to dance at the level she once did.
But it felt incredible, being Ginger Rogers. Though no one saw her dance again, they heard her. It’s not recognition that she requires. Evie knows no one sits through the credits.
But damn it, she needed that credit.
“Shit,” Theo says.
“Ross would’ve done the Foley with tap shoes on his hands if it weren’t for me.”
She sighs, impulsive fury fading until she just feels deflated and defeated about the whole thing. Maybe it’s a sign. She’s meant to edit together unsolicited relationship advice from Amber B. and Tiffany P. and any influencer who wakes up one day and decides to start a podcast. She’s good at her job. She likes Amber B. and Tiffany P.—their commentary is smart and their notes for the edit are spot-on and they don’t pop the mic. It’s just not her passion. Maybe that’s okay.
Maybe a job can be just that.
A job.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn,” Theo says.
He’s the only person, besides her grandparents, who calls her by her full name. Even when she started going by Evie in sixth grade and had to correct the pronunciation of teachers a many on the first day of school (EH-vee, not EE-vee), she never corrected him or asked him to make the switch when she entered her Evie era. Evelyn is for family, and Theo is family.
“When he promised me a credit, I believed him. It’s so embarrassing, Theodore.”
Theo’s name is not Theodore.
It’s just Theo.
But she is Evelyn to him and he is Theodore to her.
“Is there not anything you can do?”
“As an unpaid intern?”
Theo has no response. He knows as well as she does that in this situation, she’s powerless. After a beat, he shifts to face her. “It’s bullshit. Ross is a dick. But there will be more opportunities. Better projects.”
Evie knows this is true, objectively, but damn it, she wasn’t supposed to hustle and freelance and lose any more sleep pursuing this path than she already has. Maybe there will be more movies or television shows or video games to break out her career as a full-time Foley artist.
But Ginger was supposed to be the break.
Evie is allowed to mourn the reality that it isn’t.
Theo is not allowed to brush her feelings off.
“Do you know any arsonists?”
“Evelyn.”
“Still kidding.”
In this moment, she misses Lori so much. Theo’s mom would’ve at least humored the arsonist in Evie before rubbing her back and letting her cry, assuring her that her feelings are valid. She’d make matzo ball soup and they’d watch Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love again and again. Lori Cohen was more of a mom to Evie than her actual mom, who’s very much alive and off gallivanting around Europe with her husband, Jean-Paul, and their six-year-old daughter, Margot. Naomi Deleve-Laurent’s new family. She’s currently somewhere that begins with the letter M . Marseille? Mykonos? Evie doesn’t know and, quite frankly, doesn’t care.
Theo cleans the kitchen.
As he ladles leftover soup into Tupperware, Evie lets it go, him brushing off her feelings in pursuit of a solution. Pep and Mo’s bungalow is an open floor plan, so she just has to shift her position on the couch to watch him move as comfortably in her grandparents’ kitchen as if it were his own. Theo grew up baking challah and folding hamantaschen in this kitchen alongside her and Imogen and their grandparents.
Evie lent Theo her grandparents, and in return, he gave her a mom.
“How’s Gen liking Culver?” Theo asks.
“She’s so in love. I miss her so much.”
“You just saw her yesterday.”
“For the first time in a week.”
Imogen moved out three months ago, left the Pasadena bungalow and moved into a condo on the west side with Sloane. Evie reacted as if there were an ocean between them and not just the 110. It’s the same difference. She now has to drive through downtown to see her sister. Evie has ghosted many a Hinge date due to this impractical commute. Maybe she’s left her soulmate on read. If so, LA traffic is entirely to blame. If someone lives off the 405 or the 10? It’ll never work.
Evie and Imogen had lived together in Pep and Mo’s bungalow since Gen graduated from UCLA. You can be indefinite house sitters , they pitched, after telling their grandchildren that they’d spent a small fortune on an RV and were off to glamp their way across the continental United States. Someone has to keep the plants alive , Mo, tender to a prizewinning tomato garden, had said. So optimistic, Evie’s grandfather was. Imogen drowned the poor tomatoes that first summer the Bloom sisters lived alone, together.
Evie assumed she would be here for a year, max.
It’s been three years house-sitting the quaint craftsman-style bungalow built in 1919 and purchased by Pep and Mo for a steal in 1973. Once wine tipsy and wallowing over their zillennial reality, Evie and Imogen looked up the bungalow on Zillow, their eyes bulging out of their sockets at the seven-digit Zestimate. They laughed, then burst into tears at proof of what they already knew to be true—they will never be able to afford property in LA County.
Three years in the bungalow.
Three months without Imogen.
The silence has been incredibly unsettling. Evie has never been the best at being alone, so Theo has been spending more nights at the bungalow than in his own apartment, a two-bedroom off Del Mar he shares with two college acquaintances turned friends, Pranav Singh and Micah Solomon. Theo’s place is okay in small doses, but it’s too much people-ing and a guaranteed allergic reaction to Puck, Pranav and Micah’s feral cat.
The bungalow is comfortable.
Safe.
Cat-free.
Theo returns to the living room with a pint of Talenti Cold Brew Coffee gelato (dairy-free), two spoons, and a pair of thick wool socks for Evie’s always-freezing feet. She puts on the socks—pink with llamas—and asks Theo how the whole field trip proposal went. Not great. He tells her about the zoo and the backstabber.
“They say you can never trust a Juniper,” Evie says, mouth full of gelato as she opens her email to check if Amber B.’s notes on the transcription of the latest episode of After Ever After have landed in her inbox. As a product of hustle culture, she is never not plugged in.
“Who are they ?”
“Me. Right now—”
Her face scrunches at a nonsensical subject line in her inbox.
Subject: NEXT IN FOLEY application status
She refreshes her inbox to confirm that she’s not imagining it. Next in Foley is a ten-month fellowship for nonunion, up-and-coming Foley artists, to work and learn under the mentorship of some of the best in the business. It promises two guaranteed credits on union projects, the ticket to the benefits that Evie so desperately requires in order to work in this world full-time. Next in Foley is a prestigious, incredible opportunity.
It’s an opportunity to which Evie never applied for three valid reasons:
The hours are full-time.
The pay is shit.
There are no benefits.
“ Imogen ,” Evie hisses at her screen before showing it to Theo.
Her sister would’ve had access to her computer, to the folder with the reel that Evie cut together to send to prospective employers and freelance clients. Imogen is the sister whose head lives in the clouds because Evie’s the one who keeps them both tethered to reality. She says shit like Let your passions lead you forward and means it because if she stumbles along the way, Evie is always there to pick her up, to be the practical sister so Imogen doesn’t have to be.
Evie is so pissed that this email exists.
But damn it, she wants to know if she’s good enough to get in.
So of course, she opens it.
“Holy shit.”
She reads it more than once, more than twice, more than three times. Her eyes then meet Theo’s, who looks at her as though he’s waiting for an explanation that she can’t give. She can’t speak, so she throws her phone at him, wordless. His expression attempts to remain neutral as he reads, but the corners of his lips turn up (a betrayal!) as he processes words she has already memorized.
Well, the first line.
Evelyn Bloom,
Congratulations, you have been selected to join NEXT IN FOLEY as a fellow in our upcoming cohort, studying under the mentorship of Golden Reel Award winner Sadie Silverman.
It’s validating and heartbreaking. Evie wipes at the angry tears that run down her cheeks. Shit. This is why she never applied to Next in Foley, why she told Imogen that she would never apply. Now that she’s not only been accepted but has the opportunity to work with a Foley artist who she admires the hell out of, she wants it so bad.
And there’s just no way.
She crunched the numbers once, to see if it would be possible, but the premiums on healthcare in the open market plus the increase in out-of-pocket costs of the medications that keep her in remission would bankrupt her before the program was over.
Imogen knows this.
Theo’s frown is surprised. “You’re not happy.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t do it. Gen knew this , but she forged my application anyway.”
“Evelyn.” Theo runs a hand through disheveled dark brown curls, his thick Eugene Levy–esque eyebrows knitted together with concern. “What if—”
The front door of the bungalow swings open and crashes against the wall with a loud bang.
Theo jumps to his feet.
“Gen?” Evie shouts, a hopeful guess because she’s the only person besides herself and Theo with a key, and also it would be so satisfying to chew out her sister in real time. “You scared the shit out of us!”
Silence.
Then, footsteps.
“Shit.” Evie stands, her brain shifting from being pissed at her sister to worst-case scenario as depicted in every true-crime podcast she listens to like the basic white girl she is. She grabs a frying pan off the counter and holds it like a baseball bat, channeling her inner Rapunzel. Tangled was a formative film. Theo reaches for the bulk bag of matzo meal and ducks behind the island, reaching for Evie’s hand to pull her down to hide with him.
Evie is somehow, impossibly, both terrified and amused. “What exactly is the plan? Bludgeon the intruders with a bag of matzo meal?”
“Shut up. I panicked,” Theo whispers.
Outside, a car door slams.
Are nighttime intruders usually so loud ?
“What do we do?”
“Call nine-one-one?”
“My phone is on the couch.”
Theo pats his pockets. “Mine too. Shit.”
“Go get it,” Evie says.
“Me?”
“Take this.”
She holds out the frying pan and he gives her a look . “Seriously?”
“What? It’s more useful than your panic weapon of choice.”
“I’m not—”
Evie reaches for the bag of matzo meal in an attempt to rip it out of Theo’s grip and arm him with the pan, but he’s holding on to that bag as if his life depends on it, and it rips , matzo meal flying and covering the cabinets, the floor, them . It coats their clothes, goes up their noses, settles in their hair. It’s going to be a wild sight for the coroner to see at the crime scene, two best friends whose final moments were covered in matzo meal and—
“We’re baaaaaack ,” Grandpa Mo’s baritone sings from the front door.
“Ev? Sweets?” Grandma Pep’s distinctive alto shouts as if it’s not almost 10:00 p.m. on a Thursday and their neighbors aren’t asleep.
Oh.
Evie’s adrenaline-sped heart returns to a normal rate. Her eyes meet Theo’s. Matzo meal is in his eyelashes. “Grandma?” She stands, brushing off her sweats and ignoring Pep’s expression. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing in my own home?” Pep sasses, a hand on her hip.
“Hello, Theo,” Mo says to a Theo who’s laughing on the floor.
“Do we even want to know?” Pep asks, assessing the mess that is her kitchen and her granddaughter.
Theo stands. “Your unexpected entrance sounded like a break-in.”
Mo snorts. “In this neighborhood?”
Pep laughs and pulls Evie into a hug. She smells like Estée Lauder perfume, the scent still so comforting. “Sorry we scared you, Sweets.”
“I missed you so much.”
“Us too, Evelyn,” Grandpa Mo says with a tender squeeze of her shoulder.
“Are you back?” Theo asks.
Mo shakes his head. “No, son. This is just a pit stop to slumber and, um, share some news.”
Evie pulls out of her grandmother’s embrace. “News? Are you okay?”
Grandma Pep and Grandpa Mo are active, their minds sharp. Still, they’re approaching eighty, so Evie’s brain jumps to the worst conclusion. Someone is sick. Neither one looks sick, but neither does Evie. Neither did Lori until—
“It’s nothing like that, Sweets,” Pep says.
Her shoulders sag with relief. “Okay. So what is it?”
“Why don’t we all take a seat,” Mo suggests, gesturing toward the living room.
So… this isn’t health-related news, but it is sit-down news? Evie’s stomach lurches, braces for the bad. “Mo. Whatever it is, just say it. Please .”
Her grandfather sighs. “We’re back because…” Mo swallows and scratches his beard. “Someone made an offer on the house, Evelyn.”
“We wanted to tell you in person,” Pep adds.
Evie blinks.
Reels.
“Since when is it for sale?”
Of all the reasons that her grandparents could be back, she never would have thought it’s because they’re selling the bungalow. House-sitting is temporary, but the bungalow is supposed to be forever. Evie assumed that one day she’d purchase it from them. Keep it in the family and make it hers, for real. She can’t imagine living anywhere else.
“It’s an offer we can’t refuse,” Mo says.
“I’m sorry,” Pep says. “It all happened so fast. Our Realtor advised we jump on it.”
“With Genny out and settled, the timing felt right,” Mo adds.
It is a casual dagger to her heart.
“When?” she asks.
Grandma Pep winces, so the answer is soon.
“We close in a month.”
Okay.
A month, at least, gives Evie time to grieve, to process, to apartment hunt.
“But you need to be out for repairs by the end of next week.”
Shit .
Evie’s nose wrinkles, combating the panic tears threatening to surface. “You really could’ve called.”
“It was only just finalized this morning, Sweets.” Her grandmother applies gentle pressure to Evie’s shoulders, which have risen so high they nearly brush her earlobes. It does little to ease the tension. “A few offers fell through in escrow. We didn’t want to needlessly worry you.”
What the fuck is escrow ? Evie is going to be sick. She retreats for the bathroom and hurls semi-digested matzo meal and her heart into the toilet, then moans, “What the fuck is this day?” to herself. Emotional whiplash makes her queasy. Shit really does happen in threes. First Ginger , then Next in Foley, now this ? Out by the end of next week? What will she do? Where will she live?
“Hey.” Theo’s knuckles rap on the door, his tenor soft with concern. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Stupid question. This is a lot, but we’ll figure it out. Okay?”
We.
Theo is here.
You are not alone.
Evie whispers this to herself again and again. Tries to forget that she has proven time and time again that she is a person who is easy to leave. She was five when Dr. David Bloom, an archaeologist, left for an excavation in Argentina. Chose his research over his daughters. Just twelve when Naomi took a beat in New York, where she met Jean-Paul. Chose a man over her daughters. It’s been only a year since Hanna took a production job in Atlanta, ending a three-year relationship and breaking Evie’s heart.
Everyone leaves, often sooner rather than later.
But Theo is the only person who left because she pushed him away, to New York, toward his dream. He’s also the only person who came back—and she’s terrified that any day he’s going to wake up and poof back to his dream life.
“I already miss it,” Evie says.
“I know.”
She doesn’t have her dream life, but at least she came home every day to a place she loved.
Loved .
She’s already thinking about the bungalow in past tense—like how she thinks about dance, about Hanna, about her parents. She used to dance. She was in love. Her parents left . Now? She loved this bungalow. She winces over this latest shift from present to past, another end of an era. Evelyn Bloom has always hated endings.
But oof , are they extra brutal when there’s no way to see them coming.