Bliss

S
leek and pinned-back as a ballerina, Eva strode through the Great Hall of Waters, efficiently hiding hurt. She was a living ad for sexiness and blithe self-sufficiency, an earthbound overlord of sun and stars. Eva was at the Lost City Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and Eva had to pee.

She clicked past a casino’s smoked windows and stepped into a lobby restroom of the Coral Towers. In a mirror, Eva checked her quick grimace for smudges, then, from the knot at her nape, deftly pulled bangs across half one eyebrow and fully over the other.

I look good. It’s all about singularity, attitude, and lots a panache. Plus the sit-ups. And the Tuscan pollen face cream with olive oil
.

Eva took a long glance at the doors guarding toilets. She tightened up, decided to hold it. Decided the tension would keep her on her toes.

Her cell chirped. A 206 number flashed on the caller ID.

Home calling
.

Eva’s father.

She watched the number until it faded. Eva’s new phone fit in her palm like a secret, and she could reach out and be reached wherever she was in the world. Absently, she ran her thumb over the phone’s buttons. Eva believed the cell tripled her productivity and her freedom.

She walked through the Corals toward The Lagoon Bar & Grill, which had been closed to the public for the night to house Showcase Savoir Faire. Eva wasn’t one to sweat promptness. It wasn’t a priority in the music industry. But on this night, she was desperate to get to a
show, and with its bright lights, The Lagoon shone like a sanctuary. Eva felt thin-skinned and distracted by the independence of her in-sides. But if she could get to the showcase in time to handle what she was supposed to as associate general manager of Roadshow Records, and get there looking flawless, it might matter less that she was probably pregnant.

In the Coral Lounge Atrium Lobby, Eva’s cell rang again and she quickly answered the familiar 212 number. “It’s Eva,” she said airily, like the caller should be lucky for the connection.

“All on track?” It was Eva’s boss, Judeo-Spanish Sebastian, calling from New York. Judeo-Spanish was the first thing that came to mind about Sebastian because he always talked about Judeo-Spanish history and how, among other honors, Judeo-Spanishness should have a month of its own. He was raised in Arizona, spoke fluent Español. He went to mass on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve, and demanded a kosher town house at the same time he demanded ebony vertical blinds. He loved to turn cocktail conversation into an homily about how he was a true Sephardic, a
converso
, a
sabatista
descended from Jews forced to convert to Catholicism and flee Spain way back in Columbus’s time.

God bless him
, Eva often thought.
But it’s old
.

“Yep,” Eva said to him, “all on track.”

“Sunny’s hype? And you’re sure about these changes to the show, this-”

“I’m sure.”
Don’t say “hype,” when you’ve never been, in your life. You hired me to oversee the so-called urban acts so you wouldn’t have to attend Showcase Savoir Faires. Let me do my thing
. Sunny was Roadshow’s barefoot, yoga-preaching, tie-dyed, incense-burning superstar singer. Sunny was Eva’s responsibility.

“I don’t have to tell
you
how much rides on this,” Sebastian said.

“It’s not just the money, though it is that … it’s Sunny … she could … you know her contract situation better than I do.”

Don’t patronize
. “It’s all going to work out. I’m sure of it.”
Almost
.

“Everybody’s contracts are about up-yours … mine.”

Yours pays you out in the millions. Mine
—“It’s fine, Seb, all fine. I need to—”

“Go, go! We’re pulling for you back here, Evey. You’re die moneymaker.”

My name is Eva
. The
tink-tinkle
of a nearby fountain caused Eva to tighten up again. But to pee would stab her with the fact that she should be taking the pregnancy test she had in her suite. It would put her in warm wet touch with a life-and-death decision. She walked past another restroom.

“See you when?” Sebastian broke the silence. “Day after tomorrow? Evey?”

“Yes, Seb, for sure.” Eva hated Sebastian’s wheedle.
Why wheedle from a position of power?

“You’re my girl,” he said atypically, like she might confirm her loyalty. “You know that. My ace.”

“I’m at the venue,” Eva said. He’d set off an alarm in her brain. She thought he might be overcompensating for something, or that he’d somehow peeped her weakness.

Plus, Eva was actually in front of a store at the Crystal Court: duty-free shopping, local stoneware, and lavishly printed Bahamian picture books. She stared through the window with her jaw tight. Eva heard Sebastian say, “Hit me back later,” as she took in the store’s main display-a basket stuffed with two magnums of champagne, and a tray of chocolates big as a briefcase. The shrink-wrapped basket sat above a sign: THE ULTIMATE GIFT: PURE INDULGENCE.

Eva had one on the vanity in her suite. Card signed, RON.

Dead cell still at her ear, Eva stared at the package.

That lazy motherfucker
.

I got your ultimate gift
.

T
he showcase had begun. Almost everyone attending the Vince the Voice Urban Music Takes Over the World: International Marketing
for the Millennium convention was packed into a pergola surrounded by a moat filled with real sharks and stingrays. Mostly there were middle-aged eastern and midwestern radio executives at The Lagoon—hometown heroes just town-bound enough to relish Paradise Island for its medley of mock and real splendor. Beneath a ceiling painted to look watery and filled with things thalassic, they drank and ate freely and for free, celebrating year-end bonuses and the heaven of a seventy-five-degree December evening.

At the bar, there were major and minor executives from major and minor record labels. These people had not only shopped for Prada and Zegna at stateside stores, they’d trudged Milan’s Via Spiga lugging ribbon-tied bags and stopping for risotto at trattorias mentioned in magazines. These were Eva’s cronies, and most were notorious either for having seen a project to multiplatinum fruition, or for having run it, burning, into the ground. The ones accorded the most deference had lucratively brought an artist back from the hushed hell of irrelevance. Eva’d done it twice in her career. It was a mission that required an array of exaggerated expressions (including a steadfast poker face), plus experience, contacts, timing, dirt done (and so markers on call), providence, perceived and real power, and luck. Plus the ability to persuade, counsel, negotiate, and straight-out lie—all while seeming to tipsily shoot the breeze.

She was on the brink of a less colossal exercise, but Eva was fighting industry talk of Sunny’s burnout, of Sunny’s disenchantment with Roadshow, and of Sunny’s lack of appreciation for her mostly black fan base. Industry talk had a way of seeping out to the record-buying public, so Eva had been charged—by herself and, to a lesser degree, by Sebastian—with the mission of bringing Sunny back to black. How Eva would articulate such a skill on her résumé she’d work out when the time came. But she had a plan and it was about to go into effect at Showcase Savoir Faire.

Out of respect, Eva’d sent personal invitations for Sunny’s showcase to influential execs from other labels, and she was gratified to see her occasional mentor, Meri “Ms. Exception” Heath, duck in. There were also programmers there from MTV and BET, and columnists,
mostly from the trades. Sunny secretly loved being interviewed and written about, dissected, and pseudo-psychoanalyzed, so at Roadshow’s expense, a few high-ranking consumer magazine editors had been flown down. It was a recoupable expense for her company, which meant Sunny was paying for them.

Eva had slaved in artists and repertoire, in marketing, and in radio promotions. She’d worked in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Her current position at Roadshow afforded her a bland, professionally decorated three-bedroom on Manhattan’s Riverside Drive, as well as a duplex in Santa Monica, where Eva had installed a stone-trimmed fireplace far too big for her gleaming living room. Eva’d barely been at either place since she’d signed Sunny. There was always another business trip she could take, something more she could be doing for her salary of $531,000 a year, and her “points” on Sunny’s albums. For every CD sold, and in addition to her salary, Eva made a couple of cents. In addition to managing a small staff, and being responsible for a hefty portion of Roadshow’s profit margin, what Eva did for this money, when it came down to it, was attend to Sunny. Eva was quite clear on the fact that any labels’ self-depiction—that it was a genuine sponsor for its artists—was bogus, and that the only fair payments record companies made were to those acts who had the means to coerce accountability.

Eva looked up at the slaty clouds and placed her hand briefly over her navel.
Sunny
, Eva thought,
has the means
.

So Eva was able to look Sunny in her face, most of the time, with some ease.

In a wraparound white silk jersey dress, Eva stood at The Lagoon’s bar on four inches of stiletto. Across her foot, where her toes began, was a white kid braid. Another, with the help of a tiny gold buckle, fastened above her ankle. Nicks decorated Eva’s shins—trophies from long-ago softball afternoons. Each of her ears was pierced once, but her skin was otherwise pure; not so much as a strawberry mark, or a ladybug of a mole. Her neckline plunged, but Eva had on a reliable,
Swiss-lace, half-cup bra.
Lifts ’em up round and high. Shows everything but itself. These younger chicks, even the ones with a check—still wearing dresses from mall stores and Playtex brassieres
. Eva was as comfortable in her outfit as she was in a jogging suit. She strode and stood in her teetery sandals like they were rubber-soled.
Been doing this a long time
.