Chapter 43 Ain’t a Sin to Win
Ain’t a Sin to Win
Eve
Leo Coletti: Hey. I know it’s not until tomorrow but I just wanted to wish you best of luck with everything. Or I guess they say break a leg in theatre.
Eve Ambroise: Thank you, Leo. I really appreciate it. And I’ll take both.
Eve pushed a long, tense breath through her lips as she waited for Dr.Garvey to come take her seat.
It had been a few weeks since they’d seen each other—the doctor had gone on vacation to visit her daughter and newborn granddaughter—and now Eve worried the rapport they’d established would be affected by their time apart.
That Dr.Garvey would be disappointed by her updates, as it hadn’t been easy navigating life without her.
She wasn’t sure she was ready to be back under the microscope.
“It’s good to see you,” Dr.Garvey said, her tone chipper as she claimed her chair. “You look wonderful.”
Eve smiled wide, appreciative of the compliment. She’d gone back to putting effort into her appearance, and it always elated her when people noticed. “Thank you, thank you. And how was your trip?”
“Entirely too short, but sweet,” she said before shifting to business gears. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, you have quite a big event coming up soon? The Public is no small affair.”
“Listen, Hamilton premiered there,” Eve said. “I’m spiraling a little.”
Dr.Garvey raised a surprised eyebrow. “Is it the typical nerves that come with doing something new? Or are we talking a Ted Lasso–type breakdown?”
Eve laughed at the unexpected humor. “Um. More the former than the latter,” she was relieved to say. “Though I’ve been having trouble sleeping again.”
The doctor was already writing notes on her pad. “And what are you thinking about on these sleepless nights?”
Eve winced. “About what happens if the audience at large doesn’t like it.
Doesn’t get it. You know we only get one shot, and it better be impeccable.
” Her tone was suggestive, and as the words left her mouth, she realized precisely why she’d needed a Black therapist. No one else would understand what she meant; no one else on earth experienced that particular convergence of racism and sexism that Black women faced—the misogynoir of it all. No one else could be we .
“That’s indisputable,” Dr.Garvey said. “But as you’ve told it, people have already seen your work, Eve. It’s the reason you’re opening at the Public Theater. It’s proof you didn’t throw away your shot.”
Eve grinned at the reference. “I know. That’s what I keep telling myself so I can feel better. Because if this goes well, we could go to Broadway . That’s the dream,” she said. “But if it doesn’t…if I fail, I don’t know. I might have to start coming in here twice a week.”
Dr.Garvey offered a smile instead of a full laugh. “And in your mind, what happens when you fail? What does it look like?”
“Poverty,” Eve said. “I don’t know. I guess I worry that I’ll have to start from the beginning. Or I’ll have this stigma attached to my name. ‘Oh, she didn’t do well there.’ And maybe I’m overreacting, but it’s easier to prepare for it than to be smacked in the face by it.”
“Does that change the outcome? If you prepare for a win, are you scared you’d lose?”
“Well…no.”
“I know you don’t want to be disappointed,” Dr.Garvey said. “That sits in all of us. But you get to concoct any internal narrative you want. I’d love for you to ask yourself why, in your wildest dreams, you’re not winning.”
Eve bit the inside of her cheek as she recalled Jamie challenging her with something similar. “Is that my homework for this week?”
“That depends on what else you’d like to get off your chest. I remember you mentioning workshopping your next play when this current one goes live.”
Eve tensed again, worried about disappointing her with the next topic on her list. Dr.Garvey never expressed anything of the sort, only encouraging her to find ways through her litany of issues.
Still, it weighed on her before every session.
Would today be the day she was too much for her therapist?
She’d been at it for barely four months now, and she could tell she was gaining more confidence in her choices, slowly but surely, but she looked forward to the day she stopped being so concerned with what anyone else thought of them. Even her doctor.
“I actually…decided to push back my next play.”
Dr.Garvey was visibly surprised by the news, her eyebrows lifting slightly. “The one you went to Tennessee to work on?”
“Yeah. Between moving and opening this play, and just…everything, my creativity was suffering for it, and I don’t think that rushing, just to get to the next milestone, was going to serve me.
It was just creating more anxiety in the end, so I decided to hold off.
At least until this one is on solid ground at the Public. ”
“I imagine that was a hard decision. I know you were excited about the opportunity to debut successively.”
“It wasn’t a hard decision at all,” Eve was happy to say. “It would’ve been nice, but I much prefer where I am mentally without that extra stress. I was surprised by how easy it was to tell my agent, ‘Hey, I don’t think I need to do this. I don’t want to do this.’?”
Dr.Garvey smiled. “Sometimes that’s what it feels like when you’ve made your peace with something.”
“When the hell did that happen?” Eve joked.
“What’d I tell you when you walked in here back in February?”
Eve rolled her eyes playfully as she quoted Dr.Garvey’s mantra like a kindergartner reciting the Pledge. “That if I did the work, I’d see results.”
“Imagine that.”
Eve grinned.
“Have you heard from your dad lately?”
“Not a word,” Eve said, looking down at her bright pink Rothy’s. “I haven’t reached out either, though.”
Dr.Garvey scrawled a note in her book before responding, “You wanna say more about that?”
“Nope.”
“What about Jamie? Have you heard from him since your last…”
Eve’s cheeks began to tingle the second her thoughts shifted to him. “He texted last week. Sending well-wishes ahead of all the chaos. I’m sure he’ll reach out tomorrow, too.”
“That’s nice.”
“He’s a nice person. Usually.” Eve was tickled that she could make Dr.Garvey chuckle again. “I just said, ‘Thanks,’ and left it at that,” she added.
“And are you trying to seem unfazed, or are you really okay with how this has all turned out?”
“Oop, not you trying to read me, Dr.Garvey,” Eve said, laughing. “No, I’m fine. It hurts every now and then if I think about it for too long, but I really do feel like I’m miles away from where I started.”
“You do seem very calm. Centered…”
“Your impact,” Eve said, grinning. “But since you never tell me what I’m supposed to do, I keep trying to do what makes the most sense.
And it seems to be working. It was another situation where I was able to look around and say, ‘I don’t need this.
’ Even if, in this case, it was something I wanted.
” Again, Eve looked down contemplatively as Jamie’s lovely face flashed across her mind.
“Jamie and I ended on a good note. Even if I’d like to talk to him every single day, it feels healthier that I was able to make a clean break. ”
“It may be,” Dr.Garvey said in her usual composed timbre.
Eve laughed, though frustrated by her therapist’s reply. Or lack thereof. “You’re always so indiscernible when I talk about Jamie.”
Dr.Garvey smiled at her observation. “That bothers you?”
“Yes! I’m flailing here.”
“You’re not,” she assured her, still cool as ever.
“You’re not. And indeed, it is not my job to be prescriptive.
The adoption, everything with Leo, your parents, to a certain degree—those are all parts of your past, and when you walked in here, you needed help navigating away from that trauma.
You’ve gotten those tools now,” she said, offering another soothing smile to her patient.
“As for Jamie, if he’s going to be part of your future, you have to get there on your own, Eve. ”
“That sounds like a ploy to make me keep paying you,” Eve said, only half-kidding. “Do you at least have an opinion on him?”
“I do. I have a lot of opinions on all my patients’ lives. That’s human nature. But that’s not going to help you, is it?”
“I know. You’re right,” Eve relented. She already knew what she wanted, so another point of view wouldn’t really help.
There was a good chance it would only confuse her more.
She just wanted to know that her doctor liked him.
That she’d approve if she took that step backward into a long-distance relationship she’d never really be satisfied with. “I’m just so curious.”
“I will tell you something that I think you should hear. Something I’ve wanted you to come around to understanding without me saying it outright,” Dr.Garvey said.
“But sometimes, abstract lessons don’t work, and we just need to hear things straight up.
If you don’t think you’re ready to be in a relationship right now, by all means, please enjoy being single.
Please . But this journey you’re on,” she said, looking straight into Eve’s eyes, “it should be about striving for progress, not perfection.”
—
“Ms.Ambroise?”
Eve was so engrossed in her phone, looking for a text, an email, literally any sign of communication from her dad, she almost missed the knocking at her temporary door backstage at the Public.
She was sharing a greenroom with her play’s director, Stefani, where the two of them had just finished with makeup ahead of press.
When Eve looked up, her mirror showed the reflection of the venue’s house manager walking into the room toting a lavish flower arrangement.
Eve laughed, already taken aback by the gesture. “These can’t be for me.”
“Your assistant told me it was imperative that they were delivered to you personally.”