Chapter 10
Eve’s manager calls her while she’s blow-drying her hair a few days later.
“I have a potential partnership for you,” her manager says. “This guy wants to meet you.”
“Really?”
“He’s a famous actor. Hush-hush. But he’s launching a beer company, and he’s trying to get social media traction.
He thinks ‘Evergreen’ would be perfect, but he wants to turn something around ASAP.
While the song is still trending. His exact words were, ‘We fly her to California, shoot, edit, post, bing bang boom.’ ”
“What famous actor is going around saying ‘bing bang boom’?”
“Actors are weird.”
“I mean,” Eve says, “it pays, right? How much does it pay?”
Her manager says a number. It is the number of a college tuition.
“Just to use my stupid song?”
“They want you to be in the ad.”
“Really? Will someone professional do my hair and makeup? Because I have a huge zit on my chin right now.”
“That’s the spirit,” her manager says.
The brand is called Summer Camp. Their cans look like enamel mugs. Instead of plastic rings, they are held together with friendship bracelets. At pop-up events, they offer tastings using canoe paddles as beer paddles.
In the social media ad, which requires Eve to fly to Lake Tahoe, she stands on a dock wearing a white lifeguard T-shirt and red terrycloth shorts.
“Evergreen” plays. At the end of the bridge, the drums get loud and Clay goes, “Hey!” In the ad, this is the moment where Eve holds up her can of Summer Camp Off-Duty IPA.
Pops the tab. Turns to look at the camera over her shoulder. Big logo. Boom.
They pay her a college tuition. “Evergreen” plays and plays, and then, when the rest of the album drops, “Evergreen” becomes incessant.
Incessant to everyone, or just to Eve, just to Eve’s algorithms?
It feels like she can’t escape it, but her streaming numbers still can’t compare to the Main Pop Girlies.
Eve cannot fathom how overwhelmed they must feel by the presence of their own music.
The first time she hears “Evergreen” in public—while buying ice cream in a bodega—she almost has a heart attack.
Eve sits for an interview with a magazine where they ask her what overnight success feels like.
It doesn’t feel overnight, is what it feels like.
They ask if her fans have been supportive of her new sound and she says yes even though many of them have not.
They think she’s too mainstream, a sellout, just another beta pop wannabe.
She is written up on the music criticism website, the big one, and they say: “Olsen’s journey into radio dance pop isn’t just surprising—it’s boring.
” They go on to say: “While her lead single, ‘Evergreen,’ may fuel this summer’s pool parties, the album will ultimately be lost in the beige algorithmic haze of heartless pop intended to trend on social media.
It’s full of sound, sure—but, ultimately, signifies nothing. ”
Eve reads the review on her phone and closes the tab. She gets on the L to the C and takes it uptown.
At her parents’ door, she rings the bell. She waits there awhile; it seems possible, after all this, that they never answer.
But then they do. Her dad; her mom hesitating behind.
“A gift for you,” she says. She extends the vinyl of Sunbeam, Baby in their direction. On it, she has taped a check full of zeros. It is the first check she has ever written. Who writes checks anymore? She had to go to the bank to get it. The memo line says: “Wasted potential.”
“Here’s my album,” Eve says. “I think you’ll really hate it.”