Chapter 5
Eve feels herself zoning in and out through dinner. She left her phone in the other room, but every time another phone buzzes, she finds herself reaching for her pocket to find out what kind/horrible/invasive thing has been said about her most recently.
Nothing goes entirely wrong, but nothing goes entirely right, either.
Julian wants to take a group picture, but then he gets annoyed at the bad lighting, which exasperates Eve.
Petra asks if there will be a second season of Soulmates, and Julian says, “Oh, definitely,” but Gigi says, “We’ll see,” and Danny says, “Has anyone talked to me about this?” Then, when they’re eating a chocolate cake Petra and Shannon brought, Julian says, “Is this Swiss? Babe, we should find one when we go.”
“Ix-nay,” Gigi says.
“Oh, yeah,” Danny says. “Aren’t you two going skiing in the Alps in a few weeks?”
“Is that, like, a secret?” Eve asks.
A pause.
“Ah,” Eve says. “You’re going with Mom and Dad.”
“Oh,” Danny says.
“It’s not a big deal,” Julian says. “Eve, please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” Eve says. “I don’t really care.”
Shannon squeezes her knee under the table.
Gigi and Julian make their exit soon after.
When they say goodbye, they link arms. They look exhausted, like weary travelers at the end of a long voyage.
Shannon and Petra leave a few minutes later.
Danny starts washing dishes—he says nothing, just goes to the sink and turns on the water—and Eve grabs her phone and excuses herself to the very clean bathroom.
There, she opens Instagram. She scrolls quickly through the comments on her latest post. Someone is saying her music changed their life, but someone else is saying she is a talentless hack, and it is shocking anyone would love a woman who is so physically unappealing.
Apparently, the sheer stupidity in her songwriting is a clear demonstration of all that is wrong with this generation.
One person says her music is AI slop. A second person says Eve Olsen would never stoop so low as to use AI.
A third person says AI would have written something much better.
A fourth person says they have used AI to recolor Eve’s hair (better as a redhead!) and simulate Botox (she needs it!) and bronze her skin (she looks sick!).
A fifth person says they have trained an AI model on her voice and all her music and have used it to simulate a new Eve Olsen song, which some subset of commenters believe is an actual Eve Olsen song, and another subset of commenters believe is functionally the same as an Eve Olsen song because who is Eve Olsen, anyway?
She is just pixels on a screen. She is just noise in a machine.
Eve sits down on the tile, where Danny sat when he was doing his cleaning, and she touches the porcelain and presses her eyes shut.
She misses him, Danny, and she doesn’t know why or how.
He’s right there, on the other side of the wall.
He’s also very far away. It’s impossible not to wonder if he also thinks she is a talentless hack, and physically unappealing, and an exemplar of all that’s wrong with this generation.
It is impossible not to wonder if he thinks she is just noise in a machine.
She puts her forehead on her knees and tells herself only a talentless hack would cry right now. Someone clever and talented would turn this feeling into a song. But she doesn’t want to write a song. She wants Danny to love her. She wants her parents to care.
Were they always the lonely, miserable people they are now?
Or did they used to be happy? The sort of couple whose friends would’ve said, “Them? Oh, they’re going to make it.
” And if so, how did the chasm settle between them?
Did it start with bickering at a dinner party, as with Julian and Gigi?
Or did it start, as with Eve and Danny, as a slowly creeping chill?
Danny knocks on the door. “Eve?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m a strong medium.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
Danny opens the door. He sits on the tile next to Eve. Their shoulders touch, but nothing else. “So,” he says. “You can predict my future pretty well, then?”
“What?”
“You said you were a strong medium.”
“That is so not funny.”
“Are you sure? I think it was pretty funny.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m really sorry. About the trip.”
“My parents’ trip? Why would you be sorry?”
“I just mean, I’m sorry I’m not more—Fletcher.”
“You think my parents are pushing me away because of you? Because you’re not more like Fletcher?”
“I know they’ve never been crazy about us together,” Danny says.
“They didn’t invite us on this trip because they’re mad at me for trying to have a career in music.”
“Do you think?”
“Of course. They like you. They’ve always liked you.”
Danny laughs. “They absolutely have not.”
“Why would you think that?”
“That Thanksgiving? When Julian brought me to your house?”
“Yeah,” Eve says. “And they were insufferable.”
She can tell he doesn’t quite believe her, doesn’t quite remember the day the way she does, but he just shakes his head once.
“Look,” Danny says. “I know your parents have been—have been awful. I know your dad is a bully. I just wonder if maybe you’ll regret it someday if you don’t try to smooth things over.”
Eve shifts away from him slightly, just so she can look at him better, but then their arms are no longer touching. The distance feels greater than a few inches, and the tile, a sharp cold.
“I know how difficult they can be,” Danny says. “But they’re still your parents. You could reach out. Even just to your mom. You might be surprised how they respond. I bet they miss you.”
“Danny, my dad made me pay back my college tuition because he was mad at me.”
“But he didn’t make you. What was he going to do, sue you?”
“Maybe.”
“No,” Danny says. His voice never rises. If anything, it gets quieter—like he is in physical pain. “He wouldn’t have.”
“I know I was lucky. Really lucky growing up. But they told me they wouldn’t help me if I fell.”
“But they would have. Jesus, Eve. If you’d have seriously fucked up your life, your parents would have caught you. Your brother would have caught you. Yes, it would have bruised your pride, but you’ve never really been alone against the world.”
“And you have? You, with the most supportive dad who ever graced this earth?”
“Can you not talk about him like he’s a sitcom character?” Danny says.
“Why are we doing this?” Eve says. “I don’t want to be doing this.”
Danny presses his hands to his temples. He exhales slowly. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah, okay. Maybe we can just—take a beat.”
He reaches for his phone. Eve feels something heavy sinking within her. She hopes he doesn’t open his app, and then she has to watch as that’s exactly what he does.
“Can you not ask Bug how to solve this?” she says. “Please?”
“But I don’t know how to solve this. I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”
“I don’t want to talk to Bug. I want to talk to you.”
For a long moment, neither of them says anything. Then he sets down his phone, puts his arm around Eve, and pulls her to his chest. She sits there with her ear against his heart. It sounds too muffled, like she is listening across some very great distance.