Chapter 16 Let Her Cook
Let Her Cook
Eve
Jamie being gone during the week had really forced Eve to acclimate to her general existence in Tennessee.
She wouldn’t pretend she didn’t miss her friend, but she also no longer minded the forty-minute drive to Knoxville if it meant having some creature comforts like farmers’ markets and big-box stores.
And she’d found something of a groove in her writing, allowing her to pass much of her time doing what she came to do in the first place.
Eve had even made a couple of friends at the restaurant, including one of the waitresses, Abbey, who rocked a blue-and-blond Mohawk and spoke in a chirpy Southern accent like Kristin Chenoweth.
Abbey had invited her to a nearby bar for drinks and karaoke with the locals, but one google of the place and Eve decided she was better off declining.
She still had her limits, and trying to do too much too soon would probably backfire.
Then, there was the kind but nosy cashier, Jill, who made for good company, it turned out.
On Saturdays, Eve would go to the diner later than usual.
She started doing so to avoid the weekend rush, and all the kids who came with it, but now and then, if she asked nicely, Jill would join her for lunch and bring along leftover food from the kitchen that day.
Jill always looked at her suspiciously when she showed up without Jamie—which had been often, as of late—but she rarely said much about it. Eve was endlessly amused that Jill didn’t even know his name, because he always paid in cash.
“What kind of person only carries cash in this day and age?” she’d asked.
Eve laughed at her, agreeing that Jamie was certainly singular.
He carried a flip phone and read authors most white people had never heard of, and she got the feeling he had much more money than his car or wardrobe would lead anyone to believe.
Against all odds, he was uneasy about getting head without being able to give it, which only mystified her, thereby making her more interested in him.
“Where is he anyway?” Jill demanded. “It’s the weekend. He should be with you.”
“I don’t keep tabs on him,” Eve said, even though she knew full well he was back in Nashville for Dad duty. But that wasn’t a can of worms she intended to open up with someone as inquisitive as Jill. “I’m sure he’s wherever he needs to be.”
“Pretty as you are, I didn’t sit here just to stare at you,” Jill said, stuffing her mouth with corned beef hash. “So what do you wanna talk about?”
Eve suppressed a laugh, but she really cherished Jill’s company.
She was direct in a manner similar to Maya, and Eve had missed that.
She had to remind herself not to call this woman bitch in the playful way she did with her best friend.
“Well, excuse me for thinking you just wanted to have lunch with me.”
“I have lunch at home,” Jill replied. “I’m here to sit with you. To talk to you. So talk.”
“Okay…” Eve expelled a heavy breath, trying to think of something other than her grandmother to discuss.
At their last meal, Jill was the driving force of the conversation, revealing that she was a retired nurse; she worked at the diner because it allowed her to still take care of people, minus the interminable hours.
Now it was Eve’s turn to pretend she did anything remotely as valiant or interesting as being on the front lines of health care.
“Let’s talk about your play,” Jill suggested. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going slowly,” Eve said. “I have a shoddy version of most of the first act, but I haven’t figured out whether I like it.”
“So you have nothing.”
Eve laughed, supposing that was true. Another lie to add to the list. Soon, she would no longer be able to tell people she was here to write. “I was too arrogant to realize that this one would be harder to write than the last few.”
“Is it autobiographical?”
Eve pursed her lips and gave her dining companion a knowing look.
“Well…” Jill shrugged. “ I would think it took a lot of guts for someone to come back here and try to muster up all those old feelings.”
“You’re kind to say that.” Eve tried to smile. “It was cowardice that kept me away so long.” As the guilt tried to resurface, she began to break apart cold pieces of French toast, inhaling one after the other.
Jill did that thing where she reached across the table and managed to calm every anxiety that seemed intent on coursing through Eve’s body whenever she thought about her grandmother for too long. “Hazel loved you so much,” she said. “I’m sorry she didn’t protect you.”
Eve shook her head, knowing Hazel couldn’t have.
She’d tried. She’d prayed. Even she was convinced that abortion was their best route, believing God would forgive them.
Her grandmother’s version of God was less about vengeance and more about justice—which left Eve to wonder how her mother turned out the way she did.
Nonetheless, her parents had made their decision, and no amount of haranguing or guilt-tripping would change their minds. “It wasn’t on her,” Eve said.
“Do you know who the baby went to? Have you been able to see him or her, at least?”
Eve shook her head. “It was a closed adoption,” she said. “I’ve read that that makes it ‘easier’ to move forward.” She played with the handle of her coffee mug, debating whether to pick it up and “accidentally” spill the lukewarm liquid on herself just to evade this conversation.
“Oh, honey,” Jill returned, her soft voice full of sympathy, her green eyes projecting pity.
And there it was. The look Eve had come to Tennessee to avoid. Because everyone in New York had it. Every person she passed seemed to detect the misery that haunted her. It was why she couldn’t talk to Leo, and why she would never tell Jamie.
It was also why when Eve arrived home that day, she launched into her yearly ritual of trolling adoption websites for any morsel of information that might connect her to her seventeen-year-old baby.
He would soon be older than she was when she had him; meanwhile, she felt stunted, stuck in the heart and mind of that scared, much-too-young girl whose newborn was snatched from her arms.
Adoption Database, Adoption Network, Adoption.com, Adopted.com, even Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services.
She’d been at this for seven years now, getting the idea from a short film by one of her Howard classmates.
But it was all based on the ghost of a hope that her son was as interested in finding her as she was in finding him.
That he’d go to one of those websites, looking for his birth family, and in a minor miracle, they’d match each other.
And every year, she’d have to remind herself—convince herself—that he was with some family that loved him better than she ever could’ve.
That her parents were right, and it was heedless to want him simply to quell her own inadequacies.
That didn’t mean it hurt any less when, every year, the search came up empty.
But that day was the first time in seven years she didn’t shatter upon seeing those results.
—
While Jamie was gone, Eve generally spent her evenings with Hulu, her favorite episodes of Living Single keeping her company for dinner and at bedtime.
She texted Jamie on occasion—on one late night in particular, they had a brief back-and-forth about his neighbor asking him on a date, which tickled Eve as much as it annoyed her.
Her father sent emails that she refused to respond to, though she did send the read receipts so he’d know she was alive.
Still no word from her mother. Leo had called late one night but texted to say it was a mistake, so she left it at that, deciding that after their last conversation, she couldn’t care, even if it was a lie.
And despite her successful entry to life in Tennessee, Eve still hadn’t brought herself to call Stella since she’d embarrassed herself on Zoom more than a month ago.
There weren’t many people she would cry in front of anyway, but she definitely never planned for Stella to be one of them.
And considering the only topic they had to discuss was the possibility of Eve debuting at the most notable Off-Broadway venue in New York—the place where Hair and Hamilton premiered—she simply did not know how to talk to her without the threat of another panic attack coming with it.
But sometime midweek, Jamie told her she should stop avoiding her agent, and for some reason, she took heed.
Perhaps because she trusted him more than most, or maybe she just didn’t want to disappoint him, but she finally called Stella on Thursday and made it through their short but productive conversation unscathed.
No tears, no panic attacks. Just a few errant pangs of guilt for avoiding Stella in the first place.
By Friday morning, they were on a conference call with the Public, and much of the anxiety that shrouded Eve was dissipating with every suggestion she received from her new colleagues.
“So, Eve, you can tell us how you feel about it, but we were looking at an early May debut,” said Hassan, one of the three associate artistic directors at the theater.
He had an imposing mien, his features dark and beautiful, and whenever he flashed his immaculate pearly whites, it felt like the sun was shining.
“Ideally, we would like to do eight weeks, so you’d be kicking off our summer season.
And we’d promote it in tandem with Shakespeare in the Park. ”
Eve was nodding, albeit skeptically, while wondering if he really thought she would demur. “So long as there’s central air in the theater,” she said, joking. Mercifully, everyone on the call laughed.
“So Stella thought Martinson, which has a capacity of one ninety-nine. LuEsther is currently still open, if you’re uncomfortable with that many. But we need to decide quickly. Like, right now.”