Chapter 10 C U Next Tuesday
C U Next Tuesday
Eve
Eve awoke with a sharp inhale and an aching neck.
She didn’t know where she was, but it wasn’t any version of home.
She sat up in the strange bed, her head spinning from the quick movement, and as the room came into slow focus, she recognized the place where she had dinner the night before.
Jamie’s home. And her head went from spinning to pounding as it all came crashing back.
How much she liked his place. How cozy it was. How cozy he was. The way he spoke so fondly of her grandmother. And how good it felt to speak to someone who knew her grandmother and nothing else.
She remembered studying Jamie’s bookcase like she was going to buy something from it. A conversation about moonshine. And ice cream. And being powerless to resist watching Jamie as he ate said ice cream.
More vividly, she remembered wanting to kiss him.
It was the alcohol talking, of course—she no longer liked kissing or anything else sexual, so it had to be her drunkenness speaking for her—but she distinctly recalled the urge all the same, a flutter that moved haphazardly between her chest and the pit of her stomach all night long.
Eve surveyed herself and the rest of the bed, relieved to find that she was still fully clothed and appeared to have slept alone.
She scolded herself for drinking so much that she couldn’t be sure.
She scanned the room for Jamie, but there was no sign of him other than a neatly folded blanket at the edge of his dark leather sofa.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so imposing.
As Eve untangled from his sheets, she spotted a note left just beside her boots. She smiled faintly at his use of the name Evie but braced for some cutesy message about going to pick up breakfast.
Hope you slept well. I had to leave and didn’t want to wake you.
I’ve got Jack the next few days, so I’m headed to Nashville ’til Tues.
I arranged for Hitch-A-Ride to pick you up around 10:00 and take you back to your car.
When you leave, just give the bottom lock a turn.
And if you need me by any chance, my number is 615-555-0167. Have a good weekend.
By the way, there’s green tea above the fridge. For the hangover.
—JG
“What the fuck?” Eve whispered, pouting at the message. There was nothing cute about it, and no breakfast to speak of. Only the sobering reminder that Jamie had a son, and she’d acted an entire fool because of it.
She looked around, waiting for the punch line to what had to be a joke. What kind of person would leave a sleeping stranger in their home for the week? Then again, she was the deranged woman who’d passed out here in the first place. He probably pitied her.
On second thought, it was a relief that Jamie had disappeared into the night.
Hopefully, a few days apart would help him forget her behavior.
In her more clearheaded reflection, she’d become uncomfortable with the things she’d started to feel in his presence.
Attraction? In this economy? No, she hadn’t signed up for that, and so she was completely unprepared for even the seeds of it.
Sparks. Whatever it was, she didn’t want it. Not now. She couldn’t.
—
When Eve arrived at Crockett’s to pick up her car, she decided she might as well stay for breakfast—and hope it didn’t come with a side of panic attack this time.
Business seemed to have picked up from the day before.
As she rattled off her order to the server, she caught mention of “the Fourth of July crowd,” and she had to wonder if they were really that close to the holiday already.
The month of June had been such a blur, she wasn’t even sure what day it was.
Once she received her coffee and strawberry-orange juice, Eve turned to a podcast to drown out the hum of the restaurant and pulled out her iPad to get to work.
Half listening to an episode of The Read , she made her first attempt at outlining her next play, settling on the working title Down from Dover , based on a Dolly Parton song. Seemed fitting for the setting.
Eve looked up from her tablet when she noticed a figure taking shape across from her.
She could feel her heart beating faster with the hope that it was somehow Jamie, but her eye caught the feminine hands resting on the table, and her anticipation went down as quickly as it had gone up.
Instead, it was the cashier Eve had embarrassed herself in front of the day before—Jill, according to her name tag.
Eve removed her earbud, worried she’d done something else foolish.
“You look like Hazel,” Jill said.
“Yeah,” Eve admitted, her eyes averting Jill’s as the shame washed over her.
Aren’t you Hazel’s girl? Eve had bristled at the question previously, and she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t what triggered her panic.
She hated that people knew her before she could speak.
That her face immediately summoned the memory of her grandmother.
Hazel’s girl. The one who came down here pregnant at seventeen . “I’m sorry I said I wasn’t.”
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Jill said. “You looked so familiar, it just slipped out.”
Eve smiled weakly and regarded Jill again.
She was an attractive older white woman with a slender face and soft rosy cheeks, her olive eyes both welcoming and inquisitive.
She had the most beautiful gray hair, the short, wavy strands ranging from pewter to platinum.
Eve wondered if Jill had grandchildren somewhere not calling or visiting her enough.
“What brings you down this way?” Jill asked. “It’s been, what, a year since she passed?”
“Just about,” Eve said. “I actually…I came to write.” She held up her iPad. “A play.”
“Hazel mentioned that you did that,” Jill said, seeming to remember as she said it out loud. “Glad you’re still at it.”
Eve looked down again, unready to engage in a discussion about her plays and why she was in Gatlinburg to write one. “Were you friends with my grandmother?” Her voice sounded small outside of her body.
“I like to think so,” Jill said with a rueful grin. “She didn’t come by very often. Especially at…you know, the end. But I would bring her things. Do her grocery shopping when it got a little harder for her to move around.”
Eve scratched the corner of her eye, stopping a tear before it could form. She was such a piece of shit for abandoning the woman who took care of her when her parents refused to.
“You okay, honey?”
“Yeah,” Eve lied. She exhaled her emotions and forced another unconvincing smile in their place. “I just miss her.”
“Well, I don’t mean to keep you.” Jill reached across the table, briefly resting her hand over Eve’s, and Eve closed her eyes at the simple, tender touch. “Just wanted you to know that I’m right here if you need anything.”
“Oh.” Eve had done nothing to deserve Jill’s kindness, and she doubted she would be needing her for anything, but she received her words with a small nod.
As Jill departed from the table, the familiar ding of a text message rattled Eve out of her feelings.
It was her agent, Stella, directing her to check her emails.
Eve took one look at the daunting little red badge in the corner of her Gmail app, the one that told her she had 2,063 unread emails, and let out a huff.
She had been avoiding her inbox for a good three weeks now, too scared of the incessant updates still coming in from BabyCenter.com, because she was also too scared to complete the simple task of unsubscribing.
Unable to admit the defeat of losing another embryo. Leo was right about her being a coward.
Finally, she bit the bullet and opened the app, and of course, right at the top sat the weekly bulletin from that fucking website. My Pregnancy This Week: 8 WEEKS, DAY 1.
Fuck me.
Nevertheless, just a few lines below, there was, indeed, an email from her agent.
Eve reread the subject line and the preview for far longer than was rational, as opening the email would answer any questions she had about it.
But she was convinced she was either dreaming or her eyes had rendered some alternate images beyond what was on her screen, because this simply could not be correct.
From: Stella Fischer-Fox
Date: July 2, 2025
Subject: THE PUBLIC THEATER
Eve,
Some happy news I couldn’t wait to share: The Public wants Gamba Adisa !
We do have some logistics to figure out, but I think we can make this work.
I have a Zoom scheduled for Tuesday to talk dates and casting, and then I’ll give you a call.
Until then, I hope you can enjoy your holiday with this on your mind!
Warmly,
Stella
—
“Eve! New York misses you already,” Stella was practically yelling into her mic. “How long are you planning to be gone?”
Eve had already grown weary of explaining her leave of absence to everyone she knew; still, she laughed as though she hadn’t just had this conversation with two of her friends via FaceTime in the hour since she returned to her cabin.
It was her own fault for taking off without any notice.
She turned down the volume on her computer as she replied, “I’ll try to be back in September.
” It tasted like a lie every time she said it—she had no idea how she would adhere to that deadline—but it seemed to placate everyone who asked.
“Jeez Louise.” Stella sighed. “But if you’re writing, I’m not complaining. If Gamba Adisa makes it to the Public, the people are gonna be clamoring for your next one. Clamoring .”
“That’s very—”
“So when do we think we’ll have a first draft ready?”
“Oh.” She had barely written a first word; she couldn’t imagine having a first draft anytime soon. That was what the summer was for. “Well. I was thinking October…”