Chapter 11
11
“I’ve got a large vanilla latte with oat milk for EE- vie.”
Her name is written on the cup in black Sharpie.
EEVVIE.
It’s never not surprising, a barista’s ability to mess up a four-letter name. Eve. Evvie. Evey. Eevie. And that’s just this week . Evie grabs a handful of sugar packets on her way out the door. Sadie Silverman—Evie’s mentor—doesn’t do liquid sweetener. She prefers the texture of sugar granules in her coffee. Evie doesn’t (read: shouldn’t) drink coffee, so yesterday, she asked Theo to make his the Sadie Silverman way. If marrying her wasn’t testament enough that he would do anything for her… nearly choking to death on his latte à la Sadie definitely confirmed this.
Her coffee order is among the many reasons why one should never meet one’s heroes.
Back in Phoebe, Evie places Sadie’s latte in a cup holder and checks the time. She has ten minutes to drive the two miles from Romancing the Bean to the Burbank soundstage where Sadie Silverman is currently contracted to record Foley for the live-action remake of Disney’s Chicken Little . Evie wants to know… who asked for that. In theory, she should be early. In the reality that’s LA traffic, she’ll be at least five minutes late. Sadie Silverman won’t care. Evie will hand Sadie Silverman her latte, and the moment the cup with her butchered name on it leaves her hand, she will become invisible. Seriously. Latte à la Sadie tethers Evie to her human form. It’s her only purpose as a fellow—besides observe —and maybe her expectations were too high.
Of Next in Foley.
Of Sadie Silverman.
On Monday, the first two words Sadie Silverman said to her were You are?
Evie Bloom , she’d said, then added as soon as it was clear that her name meant nothing to Sadie Silverman. Your fellow.
Sadie Silverman blinked. Right, of course!
Then she uttered her basic yet unhinged coffee order, along with a soy matcha for Charlie—her mixer in the sound booth with a salt-and-pepper beard and heterochromia—and sent Evie to Romancing the Bean, the only coffee shop within a five-mile radius Sadie Silverman trusts. By Wednesday, she learned that latte à la Sadie is a daily ask. So today, Thursday, she opts to preempt the ask by showing up to the studio with it already in hand. Maybe Sadie Silverman will see this as taking initiative.
Maybe this coffee will be a breakthrough in their non-relationship.
Driving down Magnolia, the newest Olivia Rodrigo single blasting through Phoebe’s speakers, Evie sees zero flaws in this logic until a red Tesla makes an unprotected left out of a residential street, cutting her off as if it is entitled to.
She slams the breaks.
Screams, “Fucking fuck!”
Evie doesn’t hit the Tesla.
But half of latte à la Sadie is in her lap.
Do not cry.
Do.
Not.
Cry.
But she can’t stop the stressed, pissed-off tears from falling down her cheeks for the remainder of her drive. She pulls up to the studio gate and flashes her badge, then parks and wipes off smudged mascara. Her stomach cramps and fuck the gut-brain connection. Evie would sever it herself if she could. Phone in hand, she calls Theo to curse out the Tesla. He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t. It’s 9:00 a.m. on a school day.
It’s fine.
She doesn’t need it.
Theo’s comfort.
Evie runs to the bathroom, where she remains until her stomach settles and her eyes depuff. Then she reapplies mascara before heading into the studio, half-empty cup in hand.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, in lieu of a greeting as she approaches Sadie Silverman, who is securing block heels that she’s not even five feet in when standing. She’s dressed in billowy black pants and a white T-shirt, her gray-at-the-roots hair pulled back in a messy bun. “A Tesla cut me off.”
Without a word, Sadie Silverman takes the cup from her, pours two sugar packets into it, then downs half a large latte like it’s a tequila shot.
It’s equal parts terrifying and impressive.
“ Teslas ,” Sadie Silverman mutters, crushing the empty cup in her hands. “I needed this, thank you. It’s been a day.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
She shakes her head. “Charlie can show you how the mixer works.”
“I—”
—know how a mixer works .
She cuts herself off, because Sadie Silverman has moved on, sifting through a box of carpet swatches. Evie’s shoulders sag in defeat as she exits the studio and enters the mixing room. Charlie Crosby greets her with a sympathetic nod, sipping on his soy matcha. “Chicken feet.”
Evie blinks. “What?”
“She’s never recorded Foley for an anthropomorphic chicken before and the studio keeps asking for revisions on the steps. First pass, too chicken. Second pass, too human. What the fuck does an anthropomorphic chicken even sound like?” Charlie gives her a look. “Execs says they’ll know when they hear it.”
“Seems reasonable,” Evie deadpans. “Today you’re supposed to teach me how to operate that”—she points to the mixer, the same mixer she recorded After Ever After on—“sound thingy.”
Charlie snorts. “Well, Evie. This here sound thingy is called a mixer .”
They laugh. Evie and Charlie appreciate each other’s sense of humor. Charlie appreciates that Evie knows how to operate a mixer and has an ear for the nuances of sound. Evie appreciates that Charlie not only pronounces her name correctly, but also read her résumé and asked genuine questions about her hopes and dreams. In just four days, she’s developed a rapport with Sadie Silverman’s mixer that she should be developing with Sadie Silverman herself. At lunch on Tuesday, she learned his story. Charlie has been in the business for thirty years, starting as a boom mic operator before transitioning to postproduction. He met Sadie Silverman at a queer bar in West Hollywood before Evie was born, and the two, quote (from Charlie!), “bisexual babies” grew into one of the most sought-after Foley duos in the industry.
“Sadie is incredible,” Charlie says, his eyes sparkling with admiration. “Just guarded. Give her time. Or expedite it by bringing her some chicken feet.”
After a morning in the mixing room with Charlie, observing Sadie Silverman record Anna Kendrick’s footsteps for an upcoming thriller, she spends the afternoon running around Burbank in search of chicken feet. Charlie doesn’t provide any direction. It’s super helpful. After rummaging through her own personal prop bag she keeps in her trunk, Evie ends up back on Magnolia, browsing the thrift stores that line both sides of the street for any shoes or tchotchkes that could mimic the sound of chicken steps.
“Any luck?” Charlie asks upon her return to the studio with an afternoon latte à la Sadie, an extra-large with extra sugar packets to make up for that morning.
“Nope.”
“Next time, kid.”
Charlie Crosby is the only man of a certain age who can pull off calling Evie kid in a way that is neither condescending nor creepy. It’s weirdly comforting. Evie is certain that her father issues definitely do not play into this dynamic she’s developed with Charlie—who’s a single dad, who has photos of his two teenage daughters on his desk, who makes sure to leave the studio by 5:00 p.m. and not one minute later to get home to them. As Evie imagines a childhood with a dad like Charlie, Sadie Silverman enters the mixing room after an en tire day of stepping in sync ( so much of the job is footsteps!). “How’d she do?”
“A natural,” Charlie says.
Sadie Silverman nods.
Pivots.
Then exits.
“Give her time,” Charlie repeats.
Evie tosses her backpack over her shoulder and nods. “See you tomorrow, Charlie.”
“And how is that husband of yours?”
Evie’s laughter is buoyant, light, breezy . Grandma Pep is relentless.
Also, terrible at FaceTime.
Currently, she’s speaking to her grandmother’s chin. “Theo is good. We miss you.”
“We miss you, too.”
“EVELYN,” Grandpa Mo bellows, off-screen, in the driver’s seat of the RV. “I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PACKAGE.”
“ Mo. ” The phone hovers high enough that Pep is now a chin and a lower lip. “Did it arrive, Sweets? The package? The tracking code glitched. As you’re well aware, technology hates me.”
Evie flips her camera to show the unopened package on her nightstand. “I have the package.”
“Wait for Theo to open it.”
“Grandma.”
“It’s a wedding gift.”
“Grandma.”
Evie called Pep and Mo two days after she married Theo, the moment they indicated they were back on the grid after their Tahoe escapades. She was transparent with her grandparents about the situation. Evie needed health insurance to take the fellowship. Theo has great health insurance. That’s it.
Sounds practical , Mo said.
Pep chuckled. Okay, Sweets .
She was more than prepared for Pep’s reaction.
Her grandmother believes that Evie and Theo are “endgame,” a term that Evie taught her while binge-watching Gil-more Girls together for the first time. A massive mistake. What started as an offhand comment, one that she effectively muted during her Hanna and his Caro years, became a constant refrain once she was single, as they were both single and, quote, “barreling toward thirty” (they’re twenty-seven!).
So.
Peppy Bloom is goddamned delighted by this development.
Her laughter is one of Evie’s favorite sounds. “You’re welcome. Anyhoo, talk sound to me before I lose you!” Her grandparents are on the road again, approaching the California-Oregon border. Service on rural roads is super spotty. “How’s your first—”
The bottom half of Pep’s face is frozen on Evie’s screen.
She’s gone.
Evie sighs and peels off her clothes before face-planting onto her bed and ugh ing into her pillow. As much as she wanted to vent to her grandmother, a not-so-small part of her is relieved she doesn’t have to admit that so far, being Sadie Silverman’s fellow is not a dream. How na?ve was she to think that this fellowship would be different from any of her past experiences? Give her time. Evie’s time is valuable, too. And she’s exhausted. Her bones are tired and this fatigue infuriates her and terrifies her. If she’s this exhausted without stepping foot in the studio… can she even do this? Can her body handle it? Or is this just going to end in another shattering heartbreak?
She points and flexes her toes.
Feels the dull ache that radiates from her right ankle.
A joint movable due to metal.
Evie’s processed this injury, the screws connecting bones together, the loss of dance in her life. But the thing about grief—whether it’s over a person, a place, a passion—is that it never ends. Not really. She acknowledges it in the SHIT TO UNPACK WITH JULES note in her phone, then reaches for the package on her night table for a distraction, ignoring Pep’s request.
Wait for Theo.
She opens the box.
It… is filled with sex toys.
Handcuffs.
Nipple clamps.
Rope.
Lube.
Dildos.
An entire—according to the packaging— all kink-clusive toy box with a note that simply says Love, Grandma… and it’s not until she reads that signature that she loses it. Laughs so hard tears stream down her face at the most Peppy Bloom gift. She took Evie to Romantix on her eighteenth birthday and helped her pick out her first vibrator, taught both her granddaughters that their pleasure mattered, wears a T-shirt that says Pro O .
Evie snaps a photo of the box and sends it to Gen.
Imogen Bloom
fucking GRANDMA
5:57 P.M.
!!!
5:57 P.M.
i’m
5:57 P.M.
she really said?? have you considered BONDAGE?
5:58 P.M.
i love her so much
5:58 P.M.
… also have you?
5:58 P.M.
with THEO?
5:59 P.M.
um
6:00 P.M.
no
6:00 P.M.
but let’s unpack why your brain went there
6:00 P.M.
“So for dinner—”
Evie is so fixated on her phone, on her back-and-forth with Gen, that she doesn’t even register Theo’s voice, its proximity to her, or that she’s not wearing pants.
“—I’m thinking… fuck, Evelyn .”
Evie drops her phone and jumps to her feet, unsure if she’s more mortified by the fact that her best friend is speaking directly to her extremely exposed ass or that the fabric that is (barely) covering said ass has tiny corgis printed on it. She reaches for the nearest pair of sweatpants tossed haphazardly on her bedroom floor. “Sorry!”
“I… the door was open.”
“I know. My bad. Today sucked, Theodore. I failed to figure out what Chicken Little’s footsteps sound like and Pep sent us a kink box and it is so hot in here—” Evie cuts off her babbling, tying the drawstring on her cotton joggers. “I’m sorry that pants were not a priority.”
Theo’s eyebrows rise. “A what box?”
Evie waves at the package.
Pulls out a silk mask, a whip… and a butt plug.
“ Fuck ,” Theo hisses, his eyebrows knitting together as she drops the butt plug in his palm. “How am I ever going to make eye contact with Pep again?”
She twirls a strand of anal beads around her index finger. “She’s relentless. But also an icon?”
“Does she really think we would… use this stuff?”
We.
We.
We.
“Are you kink-shaming my grandmother, Theodore?”
“Evelyn.”
“ Oh . You’re a butt plug virgin.”
“Evelyn.”
“What about this?”
Evie holds a stroker up to one eye like it’s a telescope and she’s having way too much fun with this. Flustering Theo. She’s been open to a whole spectrum of sexual experiences. Cannot deny that light bondage of the handcuff variety is such a turn-on. Will absolutely deny that the revelation that she’s more experienced with toys is not not a turn-on. Theo is probably a traditionalist when it comes to fucking. Hands. Mouth. Tongue.
She drops the toy back into the box.
Swallows hard.
Now Theo’s the one who looks amused. “Are you finished?”
Nope.
Evie nods and returns everything to the box, closing it up, and after a debate about the storage location (“They’re your sex toys, too, Theodore!”), she folds and stores the box on the top shelf of her closet. She stands on her tiptoes, pushing the box as far out of reach as she can, pushing the desire that it stirred within her as far away as possible.
Until Theo says, so casual. “So. Corgis?”
Her skin is on fire. Cheeks, neck, chest. “What? They’re adorable.”
Theo nods slowly. Evie’s eyes refuse to meet his, instead focusing on the jut of his chin, the faintest hint of stubble along his jaw, what it would feel like to brush her fingers across—
She blinks.
When her eyes open they’re locked with his dilated pupils behind round tortoiseshell frames, pulled up by a magnetic force she can’t resist.
Theo says, “They are.”
Fuck . She feels those two words right between her legs. Tomorrow, Evie will blame exhaustion for the way her brain short-circuits. Not for the undeniable attraction she feels in this moment, but for allowing the thought bubble to even enter her brain that maybe Theo is attracted to her, too. It’s Theo . Why is she so flustered?
You’re horny .
Duh.
It’s not Theo.
It’s that Evie hasn’t had sex since… well, since before she signed a marriage license.
“Anyway! Dinner. Veggie burgers cool?”
Evie nods. “Great.”
“Cool.”
It’s the I need to get laid, stat epiphany that allows Evie to laugh it off, to revert back to herself. “Didn’t know you were a corgi guy, Theodore.”
“Me either,” Theo says simply, then shuts the door on his way out.
Evie locks the door behind him and blasts music so loud she feels the bass reverberating in her bones, then reaches for the vibrator inside the velvet bag in her night table drawer and denies, denies, denies the attraction in the privacy of her own bedroom, where she is absolutely not imagining her best friend, her husband’s , hands, mouth, tongue between her legs.