Chapter 1
A lot of people Eve cares about come to see her perform.
Her childhood dance friend Ali, who now lives in Phoenix.
Her cousin Emily, in Bellevue, with her two kids, Marjorie and Gideon, who bring Eve a jar of homemade gluten-free sugar-free nut-free granola backstage.
(“Don’t blame me for this,” Emily says. “This is literally just who they are.”) In Denver, even Fletcher’s friend Graham idles by the door after the show to tell Eve, “Hey, I hope you’re well, we’re all rooting for you. ”
Eve’s parents don’t come to see her perform. They do not ask about tickets for her Brooklyn show. Which is fine, good, great. She’d be embarrassed if they did.
There are nineteen stops on Stella Seaport’s Shadow Puppet Tour—a tight domestic loop of the country running from summer’s end through fall.
Stella will not add stops or play more than one encore.
She does not diverge from her set list, which has been methodically calculated and smoothed down like a river stone.
Before every show, Stella talks quietly and intently with the lighting guys to make sure every angle and cue is precise.
Eve had little time to prepare, and she spends the first few shows scrambling to find a formula that works.
Start with “ski rat”? No, definitely end with “ski rat.” “HONEY LOCUST” alone on the acoustic guitar?
No, dear god, definitely needs someone on piano.
Eve thinks Stella dislikes her for the chaos she brings, but Stella doesn’t say anything. Stella hardly says anything to anyone.
Eve hates the tour bus. Not the people, but the feeling of being moved down a highway in a breakneck living room.
She distracts herself by working constantly on new music.
From the moment the driver depresses the gas pedal to the moment he puts it in Park, Eve is writing lyrics or playing her guitar.
The others commend her dedication, and Eve is too embarrassed to admit the truth, which is that she is less dedicated than she is terrified.
She hasn’t been in a car since Boulder. She can’t stop smelling the fumes of exploded airbags.
Eve quickly makes friends with Stella’s musicians: There’s Clay, the guitarist with the pine tree tattoo on his forearm, and Nara, the bassist with the gold nose ring, and Eliza, the drummer with the undercut. As far as Eve can tell, everyone involved with the tour is bisexual.
Eliza used to tour with an artist who subsisted entirely on fast food and caffeine pills, and everyone kept getting sick, so now she’s fanatical about keeping them healthy.
Every morning, she knocks on Eve’s door until Eve goes to the hotel gym or outside for a run.
Now that Fletcher is gone, Eve finds she likes running.
She no longer feels she has to run a seven-minute mile to have human worth.
Clay and Eliza sprint on ahead, and Eve and Nara lope behind, stopping to take photos of squirrels and stretch on park benches.
And Stella continues to keep to herself.
“She got famous too young,” Nara says on one of their runs. “This is how it always happens. Prodigies are awkward. Let her warm up.”
“I feel like she thinks I’m not serious enough,” Eve says. “I mean, what do I know about music theory?”
Nara squints at the sun. “It’s not that you’re not serious. Did you see Stella’s first tour?”
“Opening for the June Bugs, right?”
“Total shit show. Different set list every night. Different covers every night. Six months in Europe. She told me every time she got feedback, she’d take it, so by the end, her show was this Frankenstein’s monster of ideas. So now she’s supercareful about everything.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Eve says.
“This is a good tour for you,” Nara says. “She’ll keep you from exploding yourself.”
From then on, Eve hears that phrase in her head every time Stella looks at her. Eve didn’t realize people thought of her as someone self-destructive, a pleaser, in danger of explosion. Eve is not actually sure what exploding herself means, but she would rather not find out.
Their Portland show coincides with Eliza’s dad’s birthday; he’s in the audience.
Before her encore, Stella announces that it’s her drummer’s dad’s special day, and everyone sings.
Eliza’s dad comes on stage and hugs his daughter.
They’re both crying. After the show, Eve helps the crew pack up.
She always does this. She got a tip from an audio engineer a few years back that you have to be the first one there and the last one out.
Stella abides by the same principle. She doesn’t talk much, but she loads all the equipment and nods her thanks at everyone.
It’s midnight when Eve and Stella get the last amp on the bus. Stella shuts the door, fans herself, and says, “My parents haven’t come to any shows, either.”
“I’m sorry,” Eve says. “Why not?”
“Just one of those things.”
“I forget it’s still one of those things when you’re Stella Seaport.”
Stella shrugs. “It’s hard to know if your family is weird,” she says. “Because it’s the only one you get to see all of. Please don’t use my full name, Eve Olsen.”
“Sorry.” Eve pauses. “My parents don’t come to my shows because they think my music is not very good or smart.”
“No one ever gets anywhere trying to create something smart. Try to create something real.”
“What if it’s sentimental and bad?”
“If it’s real enough, it’ll be smart.”
“My parents will still probably think it’s bad.”
Eve has never even told this story to Danny because she never figured out how to talk about her parents’ money without sounding ungrateful, but she got into music school, and her dad said he wouldn’t pay a cent.
So she went to a different school, the name-brand school, and her dad told her if she took a single music class, then she could pay him back her college tuition.
So she took no music classes but sometimes passed open windows on the quad and heard piano leaking out and walked more quickly.
And now she is here, and her parents are not.
Why would they be? They tried so hard to make her into a different person, and she kept becoming this one instead.
“Well,” Stella says, “some people are just assholes.” She nods and starts to walk away. Then she slows. Glances back over her shoulder. “The thing you were playing on the bus. Is that new?”
“I’m trying to think about my new album. So that it doesn’t take four years again.”
“It’s good. You should start playing it.”
“At the show?”
“We might as well have fun with it,” Stella says. “This is our last tour before AI destroys the singer-songwriter.”
Eve laughs in a way she hopes is light and fun and does not indicate she has a boyfriend and brother working diligently on AI.
“Add it to the set list,” Stella says. “And stop worrying about what your family thinks.”