15 EVIE
E VIE
Just like I always have, I’d often be restless throughout the night back then, giving up on sleep, kept company by the hooting owls in the maple trees outside my door.
When the sun rose, sometimes I’d just stay up and work, and other times I’d crawl back into bed.
On the morning he called, around ten, I’d just picked my head up off the pillow and started a shower, ignoring the phone.
When it rang again a few minutes later, I reluctantly picked up.
“Hello?” I answered.
“So I met this girl who gave me the brilliant idea to go to the beach.” His voice was unmistakable, and I snapped awake as my stomach leaped and I laughed.
“Uh, yes, I think I remember something about that. You’re the guy I met the other day out food shopping, right?”
“Exactly. I love that I’m so memorable.”
“How did you get my number?”
“I’m the resourceful type.” Carter paused a beat, then admitted, “I asked Fred to get it from the label.”
“I see. So the beach ... taking my advice, huh?”
“Yes. About several things. Bit of a muse, aren’t you?” He paused for a moment. I imagined a smile on his face. “What are you doing at the moment?”
I looked at my reflection, wide-eyed in the steam of the mirror, wondering: Why exactly is Carter Wills on my phone?
“Working,” I lied.
“Is that water running?”
I rolled my eyes, clutching a towel around me with my free hand, and left the bathroom.
“Uh, could you hold on for just a moment?”
“Okay, but don’t take too long.” He sounded amused. “There’s good sunshine being wasted.”
I set the phone down, staring at it in disbelief for a moment, before turning off the shower and throwing on a T-shirt. The last thing I needed was to be on the phone with him while stark naked.
I took a breath, then picked it back up. “Sorry about that. You were saying ...”
“And I hear from the label that you’ll be spending some time with us, it seems. The watchful eye covering the inside scoop on a young band’s rise to obscurity.”
I smiled, narrowing my eyes then. “Did you have something to do with all this?”
“I didn’t ... not ... have something to do with it.”
I paused, waiting for him to elaborate before he eventually let out a breath.
“Look, truth is they’ve been trying to get us to agree to doing something like this for a while.
But the idea was truly horrible. I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than have some strange person in the room with a camera, judging everything about us, but—”
“Wonderful. This should go beautifully.”
“But,” he continued, “something about you made me think it could work. And then I saw what you wrote in the story ... and even though I still sounded like complete shit, at least it was real, so I know I can trust you. Also, I may have watched your Green Witch film and passed it along.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Just a peek.”
“And?”
“You’re very good.”
I smiled widely.
“And we thought maybe we’d give it a try. The promo film. We told them we’d agree to it if they left us alone and didn’t make us do any more press for a while. The antipromotion tour.”
“Oh, I’m sure they just loved that.”
“But back to other important things. You forgot to give me directions to the beach, so I thought maybe you could be my tour guide and we’d drive out there together. Today. You know, like a traveling companion.”
“I thought you all were going to be in the city—aren’t we meeting at your hotel tomorrow and then the label?”
“So then let’s just hang out a day early. For fun. Off the clock.”
“Drive to the beach with you guys? On the bus?” I laughed, realizing that I was, by that point, so disoriented by the unexpected strangeness of this entire conversation that I needed to shake my head clear.
“Well, not exactly. Just me. I need some time alone for sanity.” He paused a beat. “Or, not strictly alone, but you know what I mean.”
“I don’t typically spend a day at the beach with people I barely know.”
“Isn’t that the whole idea behind all of this? To get to know me? Or ... us? More precisely.”
My face had begun to hurt; I was smiling so hard, but I tried to keep him from hearing it in my voice. “Professionally. Not to just hang out at the beach. And I have some prep work to do.”
“But—”
“And for all I know, you could be a crazy person planning to kidnap me,” I joked.
“Right. I see your point. And for all I know, I could have fallen prey to your diabolical plan to lure me to some remote beach location, where you would pull out all my secrets.”
“Hmm. Remote beach location? Suddenly this isn’t sounding so bad.”
I dropped my head in my hand, cringing. I tended to lack a filter when I was flustered, and it had just slipped out. Fortunately, I was rewarded with a warm laugh from his end of the line.
“So does that mean you’ll go, then?”
I was about to start the biggest project of my life alongside a band I was genuinely fascinated by. I couldn’t afford to screw it up by getting tangled in something personal. We were dancing dangerously close to crossing a line that I couldn’t afford to cross, and I think we both knew it.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“Sorry, yes, I’m here.”
“What do you think?”
I pinched my eyes closed. “You know, I’d love to. Believe me. But ... I feel like I should probably not.”
“I was afraid you might say that.” I could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“It was nice of you to call, though. And honestly, I’m really grateful that you guys are giving it a chance. Giving me a chance. And I hope you have a really great drive and a nice afternoon. It’s beautiful outside. And I’ll see you all in a day or so.”
He sighed dramatically. “Okay. Well then, I guess I’ll see you when your people coordinate all the details with our people. Formally.”
“Right.”
“Right.” There was a long pause, in which normal circumstances would warrant a goodbye. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
“So are you guys already in the city?” I asked eventually, mostly to fill the space.
“Actually, no.”
“No?”
“Well, they are. I’m still at JFK. Figured it was a waste of time to head in an opposite direction, since I’d be going to the beach with you.”
I picked up a pen, making deep, scarring doodles in a notepad. Stars and such. “Bit presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“I already know you want to come.”
“Do you, now?”
“I do. So just do it! It’s only an afternoon. Beach. Food. Water. You said yourself you never do anything fun. And I’m guessing you’re kind of a planner, huh?”
I smiled. “Sad but true.”
“There’s a lot to be said for spontaneity. You never know what can happen. Right?”
He made a good argument. I looked around at the walls of my apartment, suddenly appearing a bit devoid of life. “You know, you’re very convincing.”
“Is it working?”
“Do you always get what you want?” I asked.
“No. I don’t.” There was an earnestness to this. “But I’m hoping maybe I will today.”
I didn’t say anything for a bit.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“Okay. I’m in.”
“Wonderful. I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”
“Wait! I don’t even have anything ready for the beach. I’m going to need a little more time than that.”
“What’s to get ready? We’re not going to a ball. You don’t have to wear a gown.”
I started tossing a few things in a small bag. “You won’t be wearing a tuxedo?”
“First of all, I will never, in my life, wear a tuxedo.”
“Never? Bet you do.”
“Never,” he reiterated. “And second ...” We were both laughing then. The thought of him in a tuxedo at the beach, beyond ridiculous. “I’ll see you in forty-five minutes. But that’s all you get.”
Of course, he did end up wearing a tuxedo in his life.
On many occasions. Award shows, black-tie events, etcetera.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to say, Told you so .
When I think of him wearing one, I always think of a night years later, standing in our living room.
He was on TV wearing a tuxedo. His arm around Iliana Billings.
A rumor that he was getting married. My chest constricting a little and the two of you playing with your dad nearby while I pretended everything was fine.
Eventually, my night went on. There were a lot of times like that.