Eva 'n' Evan

Today will be a fairytale.

It doesn’t have to be an all-out fairytale drowning in pixie dust. I don’t need any woodland creatures to wander into my apartment to help me pluck and wax. (I did that already, thanks.) All my fairytale needs is for Carl to finally meet my family, today, at this wedding. He’ll wow them—because Carl’s a charmer. Then all those previous hiccups and cancellations won’t matter because everyone will see how great Carl and I are together, and I’ll end this day with, hm. Maybe not a happily-ever-after, but a definitely a things-are-feeling-good-right-now-vibe.

I pull my phone out of my purse to send Carl a quick text.

Eva: I’m here! xoxo

Carl: Eva, I’m sorry.

No. He’s not cancelling. He can’t be. My family. The wedding.

Eva: Are you in traffic? On your way?

Carl: Caught in an investor meeting. They were supposed to leave two hours ago, but they’re still here! They seem really interested—this could be our big break, and I can’t bail.

I’ll make it up to you. Tonight? Thanks for understanding.

I start a reply but don’t finish it. My fingers still, and I stare at my phone, watching for those little blinking dots that mean he’s changed his mind. I tug at my dress sleeve, feeling like a shaken bottle of soda that’s ready to explode, but no. I won’t lose my calm. I won’t do that thing where I make anxiety-fueled mental lists, but 1.) This is the third time he’s cancelled on my family. 2.) Aunt Venche thinks I’m making Carl up. 3.) WHERE ARE THOSE BLINKING DOTS?

“Evan!” a woman’s voice rips through the parking lot, and it’s full of all the poison-apple venom that I’m feeling.

I slide out of my seat and spot her three cars over, standing next to a Mercedes. And she’s striking. Red curls piled on top of her head, blue eyes framed by a brush of green eyeshadow and thick lashes. My mind is replaying Carl’s texts while my eyes keep getting drawn back to her, and I’m simultaneously angry at Carl and intrigued by how effortlessly her sunglasses sink into her updo without messing it up.

She rests a hand on top of her car door, red nails clutching the frame. “We’re talking in circles, Evan, and I’m two minutes away from getting in this car and backing it over you.”

My steps slow. Color me intrigued. It’s not every day you get to see all three Clue cards in the envelope at once—the beautiful redhead, with the Mercedes, in the parking lot.

A man in a fitted gray suit with a pink tie stands on the other side of the car. Evan, I assume.

“Right. Well.” Evan’s eyes flick to the Mercedes. “You know I value your ideas, but that’ll make us late for sure.”

I laugh and cover it with a cough. I look closer at Evan and get that niggling sense I’ve met him before. He’s generically handsome, with dark, wavy hair and a sharp jawline, but those eyebrows. They’re thick and bushy and unforgettable, and where have I seen him before?

The woman smiles, but it’s too tight, her lips pulled too thin. “You make me laugh. I’m going to miss that.”

Evan takes a half-step towards her. “You don’t have to miss it. We could—”

“What? What could we do, Evan?” Her tone is sharp, but there’s something else underneath, something vulnerable, something that makes me want to immerse myself in her story and forget about Carl and my family and my own worries.

“Talk about it later. In private.” Evan’s eyes flit to me, and I pretend to be intensely interested in finding something in my purse. “Go to the wedding together now,” he says.

"What would talking about it later do? We've both already said it all. I should just—go.”

The last word drops quietly off her lips and lingers, the hesitation behind it whispering that she’d stay if Evan asked. I’ve been this woman, waiting, hoping, pleading for reassurance. Go to her, Evan. Pull her into your arms and tell her that you want her to stay, that the feelings between you are real.

But Evan stands, rigid and unmoving, watching her. “If that’s what you want,” he says at last, his careful expression making it impossible to tell what he wants.

Pain flashes across her face before her features harden. She folds her body into the car, the window making a soft whirring sound as she rolls it down. “Goodbye, then. You'll find a ride home?"

One side of his lips bends down, the only hint of emotion on his face. “Guess I’ll have to.”

She rolls her window up, reverses slowly, then squeals out of the parking lot, and, wow. It’s such a badass breakup move that I suddenly want to get in my car and do the same thing. Except that Carl’s not here. And I don’t want to break up with him. And I just got new tires.

I’m watching her bounce over the speed bumps, admiring her cinematic exit, when Evan’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.

“Can I get you a bag of popcorn?” he asks. “Maybe a lounger so you can be more comfortable?”

“Oh! I was just…” doing exactly what it looks like I was doing. “I’m sorry.”

Tight wrinkles form at the edges of his lips, and I deliberate a respectable way to slink away in shame.

But then something in his face shifts, the sharp lines of anger falling away. “It’s not like we were discreet,” he says, and his words are tired, flat. “I probably would have listened too.”

“My boyfriend cancelled on me. Just now, he texted while I was sitting in my car.” Why am I telling him this? But I feel like I owe him after my shameless eavesdropping, and maybe it’ll make him feel better to know he’s not the only one who’s dateless and desperate at this wedding. “My family was meeting him for the first time, and this is the third time he’s cancelled. My aunt already thinks I’m making him up.”

“My family was meeting Katrina for the first time too.” Evan gives me a flat lipped smile. “Thank you for that. I guess it’s nice to know there’s someone at this wedding who’s just as pathetic as I am.”

Well. I’m not just as pathetic, since Carl didn’t break up with me and leave me in a literal cloud of dust. But I go ahead and nod again because maybe this isn’t the time to draw two Venn diagram circles and explain to Evan exactly how our situations overlap and how they differ.

“Should we head over?” Evan tips his head towards the ceremony, a dark lock skimming his forehead. “I assume you’re here for Julian’s wedding.”

“For Selena, actually.” I fall into step beside him, my heels making clicking sounds against the asphalt. “Selena’s mom was my mom’s best friend growing up.” I don’t know Selena well, mostly through awkward playdates when we were thrown together while our moms visited, but she looked beautiful and happy in her engagement photo, with Julian’s arms draped around her shoulders, his head resting on her chin.

“Julian is my mom’s godson,” Evan says.

The terrain changes to a grassy field, my heels sinking slightly into the wet ground, kind of like my dignity will when my aunts and parents start poking at the No Carl situation. But the truth is that Carl always told me he was a “maybe” to this wedding. Then last night, he said he’d be there, and I latched onto his “yes.” But now I wonder if I’m being unfair, if I pressured him into that “yes.” If I should be less angry, more understanding.

“What are you going to tell your family about why your boyfriend isn’t here?” Evan asks, as if reading my thoughts.

“I don’t know. Run over by a Mercedes?” I say then immediately want to shove the words back into my mouth. Why would I think Evan would want to joke about that five minutes after it happened?

But Evan releases staccato laugh. “At least it’s a classy car to get run over by.”

“Good for you. That’s the kind of thing I forget to feel grateful for.”

The corner of his lips lifts into a smile that disappears quickly. “I’m dreading breaking this to my family. My mom will start worrying, and it’ll ruin the wedding for her. Then my dad will get angry and think I orchestrated this whole scene on purpose to upset my mother.”

I’ve been vacillating between Evan-pity and self-pity, but the pendulum swings back to him. “That’s a very elaborate plot to upset your mother.”

“It’s not a family wedding if someone’s not doing freeway speeds in a parking lot to get away from me, I always say.”

I laugh, then snap my fingers. “That’s how I know you! Sonia’s Scents! I was raising the perfume bottle and—” Oh. The rest of that memory crystallizes.

“You sprayed it in my face. That was you?” Evan’s face contorts in that same disgusted expression I remember from the shop.

“OK, no. I sprayed it over my shoulder.”

He huffs a laugh. “And into my mouth.”

“You were in a perfume shop! You think that maybe if a woman is raising a perfume bottle, you might expect her to spray it?” I laugh, remembering his reaction, even though it wasn’t funny at the time. “You made such a big deal of it. You were hacking for like fifteen minutes.”

A small smile plays on his lips. “More like twenty.”

His eyes drift past me, their sheen fading, and a moment later, I see why. White covered chairs lurk in the distance, sitting at attention in neat rows facing a flowery arch. The ceremony is on the lake side of a city park, a large field of grass separating the parking lot from the lake. We’re still too far away to make out any faces, but the dread sloshing around my stomach intensifies.

Evan stops walking, his gaze moving back towards that ominous empty spot where his ex-girlfriend’s Mercedes used to sit.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “About your breakup.”

“Me too.”

It’s not my business, and I shouldn’t say anything, but I’m invested now. “Why didn’t you beg her to stay? She wanted you to.”

His brown eyes sweep back to me. “Did she?”

“We both did.”

He pauses, as if thinking about this, before studying me a little too intensely. “Why do you stay with this guy who’s stood you up three times?”

That flame of embarrassment rises on auto-pilot. “That’s not—no. Carl and I both knew this job at a startup would be a lot of hours, but I encouraged him to take it. I said I’d support him, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Evan’s silent then, and is it a judgmental silence? An angry silence? A this-weak-woman-is-letting-a-man-walk-all-over-her silence? I know that’s what people think—what my family thinks—but whatever happened to loyalty and standing by your partner during the difficult times? Since when did faithfulness become weakness?

“I don’t like scenes,” Evan says at last. “And her reasons for leaving, well. They were justified.”

Ah. It was a thinking-about-his-own-problems silence. An answering-my-question silence. An I-am-now-mortified silence.

He glances at his watch, a black and silver model that looks professional and expensive. “We only have ten minutes.”

I nod, and we fall into step, both of us moving slower this time, the residual embarrassment of my outburst clinging to me like the little beads of sweat collecting on my forehead from the warm day. I was hoping that when my family started on me about Carl, I wouldn’t get defensive. I’d confidently explain that I’m an understanding woman who supports her partner’s needs. But that little moment with Evan shows I’ll crack the first time he’s mentioned.

Evan stops walking suddenly and spins to face me, his eyes wide like a toddler on Red Bull. “I have a crazy idea.”

I’m not sure what I think of Evan. He was grumpy in the perfume shop. Letting his girlfriend walk away so easily didn’t look good either. But I am intrigued by crazy. “I’m listening,” I say.

“Come to this wedding with me.”

I pause to see if he’s joking, but he’s…not. “I’m flattered.” I give a slight headshake. “But Carl’s real.”

The ghost of a smile flits across his face before he turns serious again. “Hear me out. You don’t want to go alone and explain to your family why your boyfriend chose work over you again.”

“That’s not—”

“And I can’t show up alone. My mom will give me that worried look, and my dad will get angry. Then my brother will slide back into his role as the perfect son who never disappoints.” This last part comes out with a bitter edge that makes me like Evan more, as if his sibling rivalry humanizes him.

“I get that.” My eyes move back to that ominous wedding arch. “Aunt Venche is going to make me feel like Carl’s a blowup doll I got off the internet. Then Aunt Maria will rant about how Carl’s a scumbag, which will motivate my mom to set me up with an actual scumbag. All while my dad does his quiet disapproval thing.”

Evan nods like this is standard family behavior. “So let’s go together then.”

“What, like you’ll pretend to be Carl?” That could work. Stop, Eva. That’s a terrible idea.

“I can’t do that. I wouldn’t be able to explain the identity change to my family. No, I’ll be your new boyfriend.”

“How would that work? I say I broke up with Carl, but then after the wedding, suddenly Carl and I are back together again?”

“Sure, whatever you want. All we have to do is get through today.”

Live in the moment. Aren’t my meditation apps always telling me that?

“Look.” Evan takes a step closer but then seems to realize he’s too close and steps back again. “I know it’s a little out there, but this idea could help both of us. It’ll make my mom happy. And I could help you with these aunts of yours—why should they get the chance to make you feel small? We can say we met recently, so no one will think it’s weird if we don’t know everything about each other yet.”

There’s something hypnotic about his voice, slowly reeling me in. Is this how cults work? “But we don’t know anything about each other. You don’t even know my name.”

He gives me a closed mouth smile that seems to say there’s a secret between us, like we’re already in this together. “Do you know mine?”

“Evan.” When his eyebrows tick up, I say, “Your ex-girlfriend said it.”

“Right.” His voice goes distant. “When she was…”

“Threatening to flatten you like roadkill, yeah.” Why, why can’t I stop making jokes about vehicular manslaughter?

But he smiles, expression lines forming around his eyes that aren’t hideous. “What’s your name?” And those eyebrows—at first I wasn’t sure, but now I see they make his face interesting.

“Eva.”

He’s giving me a full smile now, and his teeth are white and straight except for one front tooth that twists slightly to the side. “Eva and Evan,” he says. “Perfect. It sounds meant to be.”

“No, it’s terrible. When people do that celebrity thing where they combine our names, we’d be…Evan.”

He flashes his twisted tooth again. “I love it.”

I laugh and see there is a charming side to Evan that could work on my family. I run my eyes over his face again. He’s getting handsomer as we talk—is that my own desperation?—because just the thought of avoiding the “where’s Carl?” questions makes the tension fly out of my shoulders.

“So?” Evan tilts his head towards the ceremony. “Do we have a deal?”

Should I do this? It’s definitely crazy. But maybe good-crazy? Thinking-outside-the-box-crazy?

No. It’s the plot-to-a-teen-movie-crazy.

I finger the clasp of my purse, clicking it open and then closing it again. “I’m tempted. You don’t know how tempted. But my family will see through it.” I don’t even want to imagine what will happen if Aunt Venche gets solid evidence that I really do make up boyfriends. “And I know you’re saying it would just be for one day, but it’s a pretty massive lie, isn’t it? I can’t do that. I just have to go out there and face the music.” Even if that music will be ear splittingly painful, with several repetitions of the same chorus. “Plus, you’re right. My family shouldn’t get to make me feel small. I’m confident and powerful, and I can go to this wedding by myself.” It felt like I was building to something bigger there. But it’s okay. We all have our mountains to climb, and mine is…going to a party.

Evan’s lips twist in a way that makes me think he wants to argue with me, but then they lift into an easy smile. “You’re right. The whole idea is pretty out there. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He gestures to the rows of looming chairs. “You go first. I’ll follow a few minutes after so it doesn’t look like we came together.”

I adjust the sheer sleeves of my dress and turn towards the ceremony. And I’m gripped with a desperate urge to turn back to Evan and take him up on his offer. Or to call Carl and beg him to come. But, no. I can do this because 1.) I’m confident and powerful. 2.) I make my own fairytale magic, and, 3.) The ceremony starts in two minutes, and I don’t really have a choice.

4.) I would have liked to have thought of a better 3.