Chapter 1
Eve sits on a crate typing on her laptop. It’s August—end of summer, edge of evening, all hazy Brooklyn glow and sunset pink.
“I just think Californians make better ice cream,” Shannon is saying. “I didn’t know this was controversial.”
“Controversial?” Eve says. “We ate ice cream every day for an entire summer.”
“And it was good. Nay—great. But California is an all-seasons ice cream climate.”
“Californians lack the commitment to the sweet-treat lifestyle to sincerely compete with New Yorkers on ice cream,” Eve says.
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Shannon says. “Are we going to break up over this?”
“Couldn’t be,” Eve says. “Bring me cookies and cream in a waffle cone?”
“Aye aye,” Shannon says.
Eve watches as Shannon weaves through the crowd to where Chloe is dishing ice cream out of a cart.
She’s wearing a hat that says BLOCK PARTY.
The hat—the ice cream, the street, the whole vision—was something Chloe presented to Eve the day Danny and Julian announced they were selling Pattern.
Though Eve had always liked Chloe, she remained somewhat enigmatic.
And then Chloe called Eve and said, “I have an idea for an app for people who are tired of apps.”
“Wow,” Eve said. “Sounds like an enthusiastic market.”
“I don’t know the details yet,” Chloe said. “But I think it has something to do with the feeling you get when you’re at a concert and don’t want to take out your phone.”
“And you want me to be, what, your ambassador? I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m dead. And retired from social media.”
“Actually,” Chloe said, “I had something more cofoundery in mind.”
Which Eve finds so funny! It’s not like it’s a big thing. Just an experiment. They’re seeing where it goes. No pressure!
She finishes what she was typing. To the outside observer, Eve assumes, she looks like she’s doing Important Business Work, but really, secretly, she was writing a song.
She hasn’t performed since Penn Station, and she’s not sure if she wants to again—but she finds that the more she brings her fledgling little business into existence, the more she wants to bring songs into existence.
Creation begetting creation, and so on. Perhaps she will sell them someday for someone else to sing.
Eve sees Shannon returning from the ice cream line, but Shannon suddenly pauses, turns, and goes back the other way. It takes Eve a moment to realize why.
A woman in a large hat and sunglasses stops in front of Eve. She’s wearing a white linen blouse and white linen pants. She is, rather indisputably, Eve’s mother.
“Well,” Cecilia says, taking off her sunglasses. “This is quite something. Quite . . .” She looks around. “Vibrant!”
“Oh,” Eve says. “Hi.” Eve invited everyone in her contacts to come—including Julian and Gigi, who are very much not in the country, and Stella, who is touring, and Clay, who is on a songwriting retreat in Sedona. She invited her mom because it felt rude not to.
“What?” Cecilia says. “You didn’t think I’d come?”
“No?”
“I’m a lot of fun,” Cecilia says. “Actually.”
“No,” Eve says, “for sure.”
“It seems like you’re doing well? With all of this?” She makes a scrubbing motion in the air to indicate this.
“Yeah. I think, after everything with Bug and social media and all the rest, I just wanted something a little more—in person.”
“You can be so technophobic sometimes,” Cecilia says. “I like Bug.”
“Seriously?”
“Bug told your dad and I we should split up. And you know what? We should have. So! Give Daniel my thanks.”
“You do know it’s Danny, right? Just Danny? Not Daniel?”
“Can’t a person grow?”
“What? No, Mom, a person cannot grow into having a marginally more formal name.”
“Oh,” Cecilia says. “That pizza smells divine.”
Cecilia pats Eve’s arm. There’s a moment—just a second—where their eyes meet and Eve sees something there and Cecilia squeezes—and then Cecilia slides her sunglasses back over her face and continues down the street alone.
A minute later, Shannon appears with Eve’s ice cream.
“Wow,” Shannon says, handing over one of the cones. “What was that?”
“Literally, who is to say.”
“What did you talk about?”
“She called me technophobic,” Eve says.
“I mean, you are kind of technophobic. Car crashes. Emotional reliance on AI. Et cetera.”
“Mass data breaches!” Eve says. “Murderous robots! These are valid fears.”
“I just think it’s cute that your mom could see you all along.”
“Oh, no,” Eve says. “I find I’m rather touched.”
Shannon touches her ice cream cone to Eve’s, as if in toast. “We all just want to be seen.”
Is that all? From the other end of the street, Eve spots Danny emerging from the subway—climbing up the stairs, propping his sunglasses on top of his head, looking around. She waits for him to find her, and then he does. He sees her, and he smiles.