22. Evie
EVIE
My dad completed the restoration on Mrs. Ferreira late last night, which leaves the cosmetics in my hands.
In the frame, Mrs. Ferreira is barely thirty-eight, captured mid-laugh.
I can’t resurrect that exact version of her for the world. What I can manage is the lipstick—a stubborn shade of Revlon coral that her daughter insisted suited her perfectly.
I usually handle the pigment work for the women who pass through these doors. Dad claims I have the eye for it, but I think it’s just the artist in me refusing to leave a bad undertone uncorrected. There’s a strange, quiet peace in the process.
Tomás surfaces at seven, balancing a wooden hanger and two coffees he deposits on the far counter. Dressing a guest requires two sets of hands, so he settles in to wait out my final touches.
He stands over my shoulder for several minutes in a heavy silence, which is the international signal for I have a note.
“Too warm on the cheek,” he says.
“The overheads in here wash out every bit of pigment,” I counter.
“They’re viewing her in the chapel. The lighting is softer there.”
I pull the color back a shade. I’m not in the mood to argue before I’ve finished my first cup of coffee.
My phone buzzes against my thigh, the vibration muffled by the layers of my protective gown. Aside from Hazel, Briggs is the only person who’s been calling lately. If it isn’t him, it’s my landlord, and I’m currently staring down a two-day late notice for the third month in a row.
“Two minutes,” I tell Tomás.
“Take five. And for God’s sake, scrub up properly.”
I shed the gown in the anteroom, scrub up to the elbows, and take the call.
“Evie, hey.”
“It’s so early, Briggs.”
“It’s ten here.” I hear a fridge door swing open on his end. “I have a question. I’ve been trying to convince myself it’s a bad idea for three days, and the logic hasn’t held.”
“That’s a terrible opener.”
“Will you come to Charlotte? I really want to see you.”
The air in the corridor feels suddenly scarce. I press my forehead against the cool cinder block. “What?”
“Second weekend of February. We have a home game. Danny already confirmed he’d cover your shifts with my dad.”
“You cleared this with Danny before you even asked me?”
“In case you said yes.” I can practically see him standing in his kitchen, the fridge door still wide. “I didn’t know if Sutton’s could spare you. If they can, you could fly out. Four hours direct. You land Friday, and I’ll have you back in Vegas by Monday morning.”
I lean against the fire extinguisher casing. “I don’t know, Briggs.”
“You’ve never seen me play.”
“That’s not true,” I say, my voice dropping. “I’ve seen plenty of your games.”
He huffs. “On a cereal box–sized screen doesn’t count.”
“Your dad has a sixty-inch TV. It’s plenty of surface area.”
“You’ve never been to Carolina,” he says, his tone shifting into something softer, more persuasive.
The thought of actually being in his city, in his space without the desert pressing in, makes my stomach do a slow, dizzying roll. “That’s true.”
“So come.”
“I’d have to clear it with my dad. And the flights alone—”
“Handled. The second you say yes.” He lets out a heavy breath. “I once paid four grand for a suite and slept in it for three hours. This is a better investment. Let me do this, Evie.”
I should be practical. I should weigh the debt and the schedule and the absolute mess of my feelings. But the artist in me wants to see the colors of a different city, and the woman in me just wants to see him.
“Fine. Yes. Okay.”
“Booking it now.”
The sound of his rapid tapping carries through the line. It has me feeling nineteen again—reckless, unmoored, and pulsing with a terrifying sort of electricity. I should probably be worried about how easily he can sway me, but I’m too busy trying to keep my breathing level.
“Briggs. When you say good seats, you mean on the glass, right?”
“Glass,” he says, a grin evident in his voice. “For the girl with equity.”
I hang up and spin once in the empty hallway, clutching the phone to my chest like a teenager. Tomás picks that exact second to lean out of the preparation room.
“What?” I ask, my neck flashing hot.
“Nothing at all.”
I roll my eyes. “Just say it, Tomás.”
“I’ve never seen you look quite so moony. It’s disturbing.” He holds the door open. “Come help me dress this woman before her family arrives.”
We work together as he manages the weight and I manage the fabric. Her daughter brought pearl earrings in a sandwich bag, so I thread them into her lobes myself.
“So,” Tomás says, adjusting a sleeve. “That hockey guy has finally worn you down, then.”
I’ve been working with Tomás long enough that it’s become difficult to hide my life from him. I know he’s hooked up with his ex Devon, a barista at the place on Water Street, six times since New Year’s. He knows I’ve been texting a man I met at his own brother’s funeral.
Neither of us has the moral high ground here.
We keep each other’s secrets. It’s the whole basis of the friendship.
“He’s flying me out for a weekend,” I reply. “It doesn’t mean we’re together.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t ‘mm’ me.”
“I made a single, noncommittal noise.”
“It was a very pointed noise.”
He adjusts Mrs. Ferriera’s left hand over her right and steps back. “Phil’s going to lose his mind. He’s already convinced you’re going to marry into the tax bracket of the elite and abandon us for a life of leisure.”
“Phil also thinks that weird horse brought us good fortune.”
“We booked four full services the week Diamond arrived.”
“There was a multi-car accident on the 15. That’s the definition of a tragedy, not luck.”
“Morbidly the same difference for us.” He checks the line of the dress one last time. “Ask your dad about the time off today. He’ll need to move some things around.”
I wait until the viewing is underway.
Mrs. Ferreira looks peaceful under the chapel’s amber lamps. Her daughter stops in the doorway and presses a hand to her mouth. On her way out, she catches my arm and holds it tight for a heartbeat without a word.
I find my dad in the prep room at half past noon, gowned up, with the county paperwork clipped to the wall where the reference photo usually goes.
“Thought you’d be at lunch,” I say.
“I wanted to get this done first.” He nods at the table. “Coroner released him Tuesday. Nobody’s coming.”
I take a look at the file clipped to the rail.
The man occupying the table is somewhere north of seventy. According to the intake paperwork, he was discovered in a rented room off Fremont, and apparently, he has a sister in Bakersfield who has ignored four separate attempts to reach her.
Clark County contracts these cases out at a rate that handles the cremation but accounts for zero labor. Most funeral homes do the bare legal minimum, a choice that’s technically valid and one nobody would ever fault them for making.
My father, however, has never been a man for the minimum.
“You want a hand?”
“I want your hands. Mine are shot today.” He steps back, surrendering the space at the table. “He’s got a beard. It requires attention, and I’ll only butcher the line.”
I gown up, snap on the gloves, and lower the shield over my face. My father retreats to let me in, and I begin the slow work on the beard.
There isn’t a service on the books for this one. No grieving family is expected to arrive, and there isn’t a reference photo clipped to the cabinet. There is no daughter who will pause in the entryway to press a palm to her mouth. It is just the three of us.
“Do you ever think about how nobody else is going to witness this?” I ask.
“Every single time.”
“And?”
“And it doesn’t move a single number.” He hands me a fresh towel. “It’s a foolish thing for a man in this industry to admit. I’m well aware.”
“It isn’t foolish at all.”
“It certainly isn’t a sound business decision.” He watches my hands work, the same way he’s been doing since I was sixteen. “I’ve had four different accountants tell me to quit taking these. Every one of them was right.”
“So why don’t you?”
“Because someone in this valley has to do it properly.” He offers a small shrug. “Might as well be me.”
I work the trim along the jaw, tracing the line the man must have maintained himself, because you can always tell. He was keeping it up. Regardless of whatever else was falling apart in that room off Fremont, he was still shaving every morning.
The process takes roughly forty minutes. My dad rolls the cart closer, and we manage the rest of the tasks together—him handling the weight, me managing the details.
“So,” he says eventually. “You’re headed to Charlotte.”
I nearly drop the towel in surprise. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Murphy Maxwell called me yesterday afternoon to see if I could spare you for a handful of days.”
“He did what?”
“Called me. Man-to-man.” Dad’s mouth twitches with the effort of not smiling. “He wants you to witness his son score a goal in person, apparently.”
“That is massive overkill.”
“He’s excited for the boy. Let him have his moment.” He straightens up, working a knot out of his lower back. “Which weekend are we talking?”
“The eighth. Friday through Monday.”
“Take the time.”
“You’ll be short.”
“I’ve been short-handed since 2019, honey. It hasn’t managed to stop me yet.” He peels off the gloves and tosses them into the bin. “Bring me back a picture of the ocean.”
“Charlotte is four hours from the coast, Dad.”
“Bring me a postcard, then. Just go.”
I look at the guest on the table, his beard finally tidy, and think about that sister in Bakersfield who never answered. There is a version of reality where you look up one day and everyone you meant to reach is already gone.
I don’t want that to be my life. And although none of this makes any rational sense, I’m doing it anyway. I’m about to fly out for a weekend I can’t afford just to watch a man I’m not even dating play a sport I barely comprehend.
But I can at least establish some ground rules for the next forty-eight hours. I’ll say what I want out loud. I’ll let Briggs show me his city, and when he looks at me like I’m the only person in the room, I won’t hide behind a joke.
After that, I’ll come home and go back to real life.