4 Evie
4 Evie
Midland, Ohio
Evie’s never been fired before in her life. In her most logical moments, she can understand that there is a difference between being fired and not getting your contract renewed, but right now, it’s just semantics to her. Either
way, she’s been let go . Rejected. Taken out like skunky, week-old trash. The icing on the humiliating cake is that everyone—including Atlas—knew
exactly what was going on. Scatterbrained Evie, the last to know. The one left behind.
For days, she has holed up in her apartment, eating copious amounts of shrimp chips and avoiding the telephone, but tonight,
she must finally peek out of her hidey-hole, like a shamefaced groundhog.
She’s getting ready for a reading at the campus bookstore, Bookender’s Game, with great, groaning reluctance. Before her firing,
she agreed to introduce up-and-coming poet Lancaster Small, a young man with sad eyes and a voluptuous smile usually aimed
toward the most attractive men in the creative writing department. Lancaster is good, she’ll give him that. Writes a lot about
axes and hunting in the woods with his father. But he has a solid handle on imagery, a great hand for a punchy closing line.
And he’s producing , which is more than Evie can say for herself.
As the chair of the department, Atlas is obligated to attend. He’ll cast his magnanimity on budding writers intent on worshipping
at his shrine. Evie can think of few things she’d like to do less than see Atlas, but she doesn’t want to let down Lancaster, who took a workshop with her back when she was first starting out at Midland. Even then, he’d been prolific and talented.
So she takes the longest and hottest shower of her life, scalding her skin until it reminds her of the pink flush of a salmon
fillet. Then she sits in front of her laptop in a robe. Her email is flooded with messages from students asking for recommendations
or last-minute grade adjustments. But she supposes she won’t have to worry about that anymore. She deletes most of the emails
in one fell swoop.
Not her problem.
What is her problem? The lone email from her agent, amid all the Midland College addresses, hinting strongly that they would have
to have a phone conversation soon. Evie hates a phone conversation. And she knows the agenda all too well. Her agent will ask what she’s working on. Evie will bluster
or change the topic to Real Housewives of New York City , fooling no one. Her agent will sigh and ask if she’s considered a writing residency. Eventually, they will both hang up,
feeling as crusty and deflated as Halloween pumpkins in November.
Each time they talk, Evie wonders: Is this the day I’ll be cut? It had been an anomaly for a poet like her to get an agent in the first place—an opportunity she’d hoped
might give her legitimacy with the traditional publishers. But she’s managed to throw that out the window too.
There’s also the fact that she hasn’t written a poem in almost a year. At first, she blamed the marketing for her book—it
took time to peddle her wares in near-empty bookstores, after all—but now it is deeper than that. Every time she takes out
her notebook, she is met with blank, blank, and more blankness, her thoughts scattering like scared little chipmunks. She
gazes at her wall of Mary Oliver, Adrienne Rich, Ocean Vuong, Maggie Smith. Each line of beauty taunting her. They were so
easily moved by things, these poets. When was Evie last moved by anything other than the middle-aged drama between affluent influencers in the Big Apple?
Then there’s a pounding on her door, a frantic and complex code-knocking that Evie would recognize anywhere.
“The knocking doesn’t mean anything, you know,” she shouts.
“That’s because you refuse to learn Morse code.”
Though she’s in no mood for visitors, she flings the door open anyway, to see her cousin and Energizer Bunny of a corporate
lawyer, Lillian Lang-Peterson, wearing a bespoke two-piece suit that hugs the slight curve of her pregnant middle. Lillian’s
hair is swept into a chic ponytail, but little tendrils escape, softening her perfectly made-up face. She swoops Evie into
a hug and gives her a crushing kiss on the cheek, leaving a coral imprint that Evie tries to wipe away, to little success.
Lillian says, “I’m driving you to the reading. Graham just told me the news. I’m so sorry, honey. Why didn’t you call?”
Lillian’s husband, Graham, is the head of the School of Humanities, and Atlas’s boss. The two get along swimmingly, which
makes Evie certain that Graham knew about her impending firing long before he told Lillian.
“How could you know already?” Evie hears the indignant whine in her own voice.
Lillian pours Evie a glass of wine, shimmering to the tippy-top of the glass. “Well, Graham is part of the new hiring committee—”
“The hiring committee ? That Ralph Fiennes–wannabe bastard moves fast!”
Lillian hands Evie a glass. “I know it’s convenient to think that Atlas had a vendetta. But what’s done is done, Evie. Let’s
focus on what’s next for you.”
Evie sinks into the couch. “What’s next is a lifetime of peanut butter sandwiches until I die via a satanic raccoon cult—”
“Raccoons are more cunning than one would think,” Lillian says speculatively. “One was even kept as a pet at the White House
once!”
“A raccoon has achieved more than I have in one lifetime.”
“Aren’t we dramatic this evening.”
Evie thinks it’s a cruel thing for Lillian to say. Everything has come so easily for Lillian over the years. Even as a child
biting on the ends of her hair, Lillian knew exactly what she wanted to do: wear great clothes, make a lot of money, and marry
a handsome man. And it all happened .
Evie, on the other hand, never knew what to do with herself, especially after her father died. She had no road map. When she pictured her life, it was like looking at a crude picture through a pair of waterlogged diving goggles. She could see the shape of something, yet never make it out. When she found poetry, things became marginally clearer. But now how can she make a living this way? The dubious honorific of poet laureate of the township of Midland hardly comes with a salary.
“You’ll pick yourself up, Evie,” Lillian says, gently now. “You always do.”
“I wish Auntie H ? o were here.” The words escape before she can stop them.
“I know.” Lillian clasps her hands. “Speaking of. Any decision on that matchmaking tour?”
“Love Yêu?” she groans.
“I’ve been to their website, Evie, and it’s a hoot. I mean, in a good way.”
Lillian shoves her phone into Evie’s hand, and she glances down at the splashy homepage, with a gorgeous waterfall scene,
featuring a silhouette of an entwined couple at the base. Large white magazine script plasters over the image: An Unforgettable Love Story . Upon scrolling, Evie sees that the first tour leaves from H ? Chí Minh City in a little less than two weeks. There are six locations, spread over three weeks, each more gorgeous than
the last. Too good to be true.
“Nope,” Evie says emphatically. “I’m allergic to... all of this.”
“To fun? Beauty? Adventure?”
“Yes, all that. Look at my arms—hives.”
Lillian brushes Evie’s arm away. “Why? It looks dreamy! Touring around Vi ? t Nam, surrounded by beautiful and successful people? It’s just what you need. And it’s not like—”
“I have anything else going on?”
“Well.” Lillian shrugs.
“There’s the satanic raccoon cult.”
“So conduct your rituals in a five-star hotel in H ? Chí Minh City. Auntie H ? o would have wanted no less for you. For what it’s worth, I think it could be life-changing.”
“You think I’m going to fall in love with a guy who lives across the world, then Eat Pray Love myself into a new person?”
Lillian gives her a big squeeze. “I don’t want you to become a new person, idiot. I like you the way you are. But what have
you got to lose? And what will you gain? Selling that house will get you set up for a long time, Evie.”
It isn’t like she hasn’t thought of the row house and the possibilities it opens. Financially, it would be the windfall of
a lifetime. The pressure would be alleviated dramatically; she could take her time finding a new teaching position. Maybe
even take a break to find out what she really wants to do.
But her heart fills with pressing sorrow when she thinks of cleaning out the house and putting it on the market. Watching
anonymous Silicon Valley hotshots peering through the rooms, wrinkling their noses at Auntie H ? o’s collectibles, her wonderfully outdated finishes. A gut job , they’d think. They wouldn’t see the layers of history, the whispered conversations on the balcony, the wild parties, the
quiet mornings splayed on that circle of sunshine in the living room while Auntie H ? o bickered on the landline with Priya. Comfort. Home. How do you put a price on something like that?
With a shake of her head, Evie finishes getting ready for the reading while Lillian flips on the news, giving unsolicited
sartorial opinions on Evie’s wardrobe. Evie lands on her favorite black dress, Audrey Hepburn style with the boatneck and
A-line skirt, a leather jacket over it, along with a pair of spiky earrings that catch the light. Her notes are in her bag,
praising Lancaster’s immense potential, his command over language, the way his poetry transports... She yawns thinking
about it. But she gets in Lillian’s Mercedes and spackles a slightly deranged smile on her face.
At Bookender’s Game, the crowd is dense. Everyone is milling around with ponderous looks, a book or a glass of wine in their hands. Evie recognizes her colleagues from the department, as well as some local mainstays of the literary scene. There’s a studied shabbiness to their intellectual posturing, as if they understand the need to shroud their comparatively plush lifestyles to ward off resentment. Evie’s always felt a little juvenile amid all this professorial style, but she swallows the intrusive thoughts, along with a canapé or five, all lubricated by the vodka tonic she’s drinking.
When the bookshop owner calls her to the podium, she smiles weakly at the crowd.
“As soon as I read Lancaster Small’s poem ‘Ode to My Father’s Rusted Hunting Knife’ in an Intro to Poetry workshop, I knew
an exceptional new literary voice had arrived.”
She talks about his prizes and grants—ones she’d applied for unsuccessfully herself—and his newly released book of poetry.
Evie doesn’t know for certain, but as she scans the room, she thinks she spies several pitying looks aimed her way.
Lillian stands with Graham, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm loosely slung around her waist. Their casual comfort
with one another makes Evie’s stomach drop a little. When was the last time she was so content with another person?
Then her gaze catches on a pair of familiar blue-gray eyes. Atlas nods encouragingly. Somehow, that irritates her into fumbling
with her notes, then abruptly closing her speech as Lancaster glides into the spotlight, a little confused, but ready to perform
nonetheless.
After the reading, a crowd lines up for Lancaster’s autograph. Evie, who hasn’t bought the book herself, squeezes past them
to find the crudité table. She’s feeling hot and a bit faint, on the opposite side of “pleasantly buzzed,” and she knows she
needs something in her system before she throws up all over the place.
“You look well, Evie,” Atlas says, his fingertips briefly touching her elbow. “Do you think we could chat somewhere? Outside?”
“Why now?”
“I regret how our last conversation went. It strikes me that I perhaps wasn’t the most sensitive to your situation.”
“Or honest,” Evie says. “You’ve already formed a hiring committee, haven’t you, old chap?”
Atlas has the grace to look downcast. “Listen, Evie. I have such little control over these things, and I was just trying to
save you some grief.”
“Don’t you think I would have found out eventually?”
“Of course. But I thought you might have moved on by then.”
There’s that feeling again—one of being left behind. What Evie doesn’t say to Atlas is that she’s not at all good at moving
on. She’s still hung up on slights from high school, like when Mandy Knight told her that her left boob was bigger than her
right, and she spent an entire year weighing each on a kitchen scale she’d squirreled into her room for that purpose. It is
really hard to weigh B-cups on a kitchen scale.
What she wouldn’t give for the carefree insouciance of another woman—heroine energy. And yet. Amid her self-pitying, Evie
recognizes that, for all her faults, she’s at least lived honestly with her feelings, which is more than one could say for
some dandified chuffers.
Lillian skims past a cluster of students attending the reading for extra credit and then she’s on them, with her arm firmly
hooked through Evie’s.
“Have you heard Evie’s big news, Atlas?” Lillian’s words are a little too big and bright. “She’s going abroad!”
“Lillian—” Evie begins.
At the same time, Atlas asks, “Abroad?”
“She’s traveling to Vi ? t Nam for three entire weeks! On this grand, luxurious matchmaking tour! Isn’t that just the biggest adventure? Imagine: our
Evie meeting some devilishly handsome, successful man who will sweep her off her feet. Kelly Marie Tran will play her in the
Hallmark Channel adaptation.”
“Matchmaking tour?” Atlas repeats. His voice is a little flat. “But that doesn’t sound at all like something Evie would do.”
They’re both staring at her, waiting for her to jump in. The thing that smarts is that Atlas is absolutely correct. Evie has always been an unabashed romantic in spirit—her poetry has the wild restlessness of Keats or Shelley—but in action? She’s as prosaic as they come. Her whole career has been an exercise in choosing the safest options—applying to colleges that she thinks she has a shot at, vying for the fellowships that colleagues recommend. She never wanted to disappoint Grace, who’d given up so much for her. It was only during those bygone summers with Auntie H ? o that she’d ever found a whisper of excitement in real life.
And maybe that’s what Auntie H ? o is giving back to her: a shot at romance, at a time when she’s lost faith in it. A chance to go on an unforgettable trip,
at a time when she can hardly afford to pay her own rent. At first, Evie felt a little miffed by the condition—why not just
give her the house? But now she’s beginning to see it as an opportunity. Lillian is right: What does Evie have to lose? More
important, what does she have to gain?
An image of waterfalls brushes into her mind, cinching her decision.
Evie lifts her chin and says, “Sure it does. Who would say no to a trip of a lifetime?”
Atlas blinks, then opens his mouth to say something.
But Lillian squeals and leads Evie away, rambling about all the most scenic locations from her own trip to Vi ? t Nam two years ago, the new wardrobe they’ll have to buy Evie, and the prospect of all the handsome men she’ll meet. Despite
herself, Evie feels a smile creeping across her face.
Vi ? t Nam. Where no one will know about her failures or her grief over Auntie H ? o, that shadow that’s followed her for much too long. She could be anyone at all. Someone brave and a little reckless, someone
who can finally get over her writer’s block and find her way back to her first love, that of words. Lillian may be daydreaming
of handsome men for Evie, but Evie is thinking about how to clamber out of this stagnant creative pond she’s floating in.
New country, new Evie.