14 EVIE
E VIE
Sometimes I wonder about that little feature assignment that catapulted me into a new galaxy.
Originally just six hundred words. Started out as a long shot.
Assigned by a magazine editor who I later learned considered it to likely be an empty pursuit with an uncooperative, nothing band.
A standard review that could’ve been assigned to anyone.
The elusive musician, and every word he’d spoken, had spun in my head like a spider’s web in sparkling patterns over every surface of my world. While he eventually said something similar about me. Amazingly.
It was an unusual time—between that first day of meeting and the ones that would eventually follow.
In those hours, those days afterward, I frequently found myself brushing a finger over the soft pink burn from the tea on my hand, watching it fade, just as his existence had from that night, until it disappeared entirely.
I was left imagining the exact spot where he’d held the ice.
He had that way about him with me—his gentle nature contrasting with the harsh edges of his more public self.
People didn’t know that side of him. Well, a few did maybe.
When I travel back there in my mind now, I see it as a kind of black empty space, peaceful and quiet, where points of possibility shimmered in waiting. The beautiful unknown, he called it.
As Carter tells it, everything we’d talked about, and the advice I’d given him about the press, had stuck with him, helped the band see that their reticence about the press could be an attribute instead of a flaw. He said that it eased a bit of the pressure.
Just after the story came out, I got a call from Paramour Records.
It turned out that at the same time as our interview, an idea had been percolating within the record label, unbeknownst to me.
A video they were considering. It just so happened that it coincided with the conversation I had with Carter.
Synchronicity at its best. The next thing I knew, I was being asked if I’d be interested in filming a kind of mini-documentary, a promotional piece to generate buzz for the upcoming album.
Meant to cover the band’s experience on their first American tour and the production of the album—a behind-the-scenes look at the demanding balancing act of promoting, performing, and writing while becoming the new biggest thing in rock music.
It was one of those pinch-me kind of moments, and I remember looking at the phone in my hand and wondering if they had called the right person.
When I said as much, they said that the band surprised them by revisiting the idea with their publicist and, in the process, one of them (Carter, most likely) had floated my name.
I remember asking why they wouldn’t be hiring someone with more experience.
A bigger name, perhaps. But apparently that was part of the appeal—a fresh, new approach by a promising new talent, they’d said.
Just like them. A perfect artistic match.
Still, I wondered, and knew better than anyone not to look forward to something until it actually happened.
But sure enough, it was true. Before I knew it, they were sending information.
That’s how these opportunities happen sometimes.
A coincidence of timing. Carter would disagree with that, of course, and I can’t help but smile now as I think about it.
“There are no coincidences, Ev,” he would say.
“You put the idea out into the universe, and if it’s in your potential to match, it’ll happen. It’s a grand orchestration.”
The band had a break for a few days, and they wanted me to spend some time with them first to get a feel for things. The details would be forthcoming, but I was tasked with sketching out a few concept ideas while I was there, after which I would send them to the label.
When I’d left the venue the night after that first show, heading home on my own, my life could have easily continued just the same as it had before—with me going to work, coming home to a quiet apartment, one day after the next, a routine that went on into the years.
And that was what I’d expected. Because it was safe not to imagine something better—the best way to avoid disappointment.
So I suppose I’d never let myself imagine I would see him again. Not in a meaningful way, at least.
But that’s the funny thing about the universe—it has such wondrous possibilities for us, far beyond anything we could imagine for our own lives.
Even yours, Lainey. Even when it seems like life is going to be a series of predictable days.
All we have to do is open our eyes and believe in them: the possibilities.
Expect the unexpected and that’s where you’ll find the magic.
That’s what he liked to tell me.
And it’s what he would tell you.