Chapter 43 Ain’t a Sin to Win #2
“Thank you so much, Megan,” she said, watching her set them on the vanity. It was a stunning—and large—bouquet of deep purple ranunculus with a card tucked among the dark buds. Eve waited for Megan to disappear before plucking out the note, eager to see who they were from.
If I’d had a granddaughter, I would want her to be like you.
I’m proud of you.
And so is Hazel.
I better see you soon,
Jill
Eve held the card to her chest, unable to hold back her tears.
Not that she needed it, but it was a poignant reminder of what her time in Tennessee meant to her; not just now, but also seventeen years ago.
She spent half her life avoiding the place that made her and then remade her.
She was living testimony of the power of a praying grandmother, and how those prayers still protected her now.
Eve only hoped Jill was right that her grandmother was proud; she hoped Hazel would have forgiven her the way Eve had managed to forgive herself.
“I just know I ruined my makeup,” she mumbled, searching for a tissue to dab the corners of her eyes.
“Are you talking to yourself?”
Startled again, Eve shot out of her seat to see her agent walking through the opened door. “Stella!” she squealed. “You’re here!”
“Of course I’m here! The whole office is camped out in the third and fourth rows.” Stella was beaming as she pulled her in for a hug, the two of them shrieking over their triumph.
Stella squeezed and didn’t let go until Eve joked that she was having trouble breathing. But when they pulled apart, they were each on the verge of more tears—happy ones now.
“Thank you for not giving up on me,” Eve said. “But I wish you’d shown up sooner, because my eyeliner cannot handle this much crying,” she added, kidding. “Shit.”
Stella shook her head as she helped Eve wipe her face. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not,” Eve said with a bashful smile. “But…I’m much better than I was.”
“The problem is you never knew how good you were in the first place,” Stella said, handing over a small black-and-gold gift bag. “But I am so proud of you, Eve. I’m proud to know you, to represent you, and to bear witness to who you’re going to be.”
Eve peeked into the bag, a personalized leather-bound notebook staring back at her.
“For the next one,” Stella said. “But only whenever you’re ready.”
“Okay, but be honest,” Eve said, back to gently dabbing her waterline, “you were gonna let me go that day I came to your office, right?”
Stella made a face. “What?”
“If I hadn’t broken down into a million pieces, you wouldn’t have dropped me? I was sure that was why you called me in.”
“Eve, I just wanted to check in with you.” Stella chuckled sympathetically at what was surely a tortured expression on Eve’s face, and she hugged her again.
“Oh my god. No. Eve. You really thought I was giving up on you now ? I mean maybe if this debut doesn’t go well,” she joked, gesturing at the area around them.
“But we’ve got at least a month before we know if this is a bust.”
The two of them laughed, but Eve found real solace in Stella’s answer. It was a relief to know that she wasn’t going to be discarded for her mistakes, as she’d feared. As she had been, once upon a time.
During rehearsals, the cast and crew had come up with a preshow ritual that they’d perform just before curtain every night.
Actors in musicals often chose to sing or yell or hum—anything to warm their vocals ahead of a long night of using them.
Other companies played a quick game, like Hacky Sack, or went around the room to cite something they were thankful for.
Gamba Adisa was a production featuring all Black women, mostly millennials, and so their ritual could only involve the queen of their time, Beyoncé, in one way or another.
They decided that they would dance it out to the live version of “Church Girl” every night, and there was nothing more edifying than a stage full of Black women letting loose to a song meant to embrace the freedom of spirit and renounce the shackles of judgment.
A song for saints and sinners alike, it was essential to spend those four minutes celebrating that duality living in every single one of them.
And afterward, Eve took advantage of the chaos to seek sanctuary in her empty dressing room and return to her own roots in the church.
She had convinced herself she no longer believed, because religion felt like the excuse her parents used to banish her.
But she didn’t want that to be her excuse; she didn’t want to have to run away from relationships, including hers with God, in order to feel whole.
So she closed the door, turned down the lights, leaving only the bulbs burning in the vanity, and she began her own personal ritual.
“I know you’re there, God. It’s me. Evie.
I know you’ve been with me, even when I haven’t been with you.
And I just want to say thank you. If it’s not too much to ask, I’m thinking about sticking around.
I probably won’t stop by for church every Sunday, but I would like to talk to you every once in a while.
I’d like you to know that I see you. I’m present.
I’m thankful. A year ago…” Eve let out a sharp exhale.
“Well, you already know who and where I was a year ago. But thank you for giving me the sense and the strength to get out of my own way. Thank you for showing me life beyond the confines of my grief and my fear. Thank you for reminding me how to love myself. I’m still scared sometimes.
I’m still sad sometimes. But I’m no longer scared of being sad.
I’m no longer scared of being happy either.
” Eve opened her eyes and took a deep breath, her lips curling into an uncontainable smile as she stared at herself in her mirror.
“Thank you for showing me the difference.”
Amen.
When Eve first heard about this opportunity, she was afraid to believe in it.
Getting eight weeks at the Public Theater was a dream.
The fact that it starred an Emmy-winning actress sounded like a lie.
Eve had gotten lost in the surreality of it all and had to resist the urge to pinch her own skin at random moments throughout the night, not wanting to give in to her cynicism.
When she walked onto the stage to a standing ovation, she thought surely she’d be waking up soon, all of it some fever dream from the broke and broken college sophomore who chose theater as a major just to piss off her parents.
In the subsequent years, it became her therapy, the stories she concocted allowing her to express her feelings of despair and rage, to dress her wounds, to relay her experiences.
Now that she’d been to actual therapy, she could do that with her work, but also, so much more.
At their last rehearsal, one of the performers came up to her to tell her that this play was going to stay with people.
The reviews used words like powerful , fiery , and startling .
She hoped they were right. She hoped larger audiences would see Sandra Bland the person, the woman, whose life was more than its tragedy, and how Black women claimed their joy and existed in spaces beyond the trauma they were forced to endure.
If that happened, whether they moved to Broadway or not, she’d succeeded.
In other ways, she’d failed. While her relationship with her mother was improving, the one with her father was nonexistent, and despite having the tools to move forward without his acknowledgment, she refused to use them.
She’d decided to be just as stubborn as he was, even if it hurt.
On the brighter side, she was learning to process that hurt without having to pretend it didn’t exist. It wasn’t sitting somewhere rotting her insides; it was a scar, and as Dr.Garvey would say, those healed with proper care.
And she was allowed to drop off her baggage sometimes.