Pictures of You

Evie, at first thinking she has a hangover, wakes in a hospital room in Sydney. She wants her mom and Bree. A nurse informs Evie that the car accident she was in took the life of her husband, Oliver. Evie is surprised and confused to learn that she is married. She doesn’t remember anyone named Oliver. She’s astonished at the sight of her adult body and colored hair. A psychiatrist enters and learns that Evie thinks the year is 2011 and that she is 16 years old. The psychiatrist informs her she is 29 and widowed. Evie confronts “the unbelievable sets of facts that [she] appear[s] to be an adult woman with prescription lenses, fine lines on [her] face, additional pounds on [her] frame, and a dead husband [she] never wanted” (11).

Evie finds her phone and dials Oliver. His voicemail message is unimaginative. Evie listens to her own and wonders why she sounds so flat and unexcited by life at 29. She taps the contact for Mum and an unfamiliar woman answers, saying they’re on their way. Bree’s number is disconnected. Evie feels like she’s stumbled into “some horrible, unrecognizable Freaky Friday reality” (15). The psychiatrist suggests that, after trauma, the mind can take a person back to a time in their life when they felt safe. He assures her that dissociative amnesia is temporary.

Evie looks at her phone pictures and sees a young girl with blonde pigtails and a handsome blonde man who must be Oliver. At 16, Evie had a “no romance” rule so she could focus on her ambitious dreams and not become a mess over a boy. She supposes, “[T]his romance must have been it. An all-consuming, period-drama-rivaling, personal-rule-break love story that teenage me had secretly been pining for all along” (18).

Oliver’s parents arrive at the hospital. Gwendolyn is immaculate and put together, and Anderson Roche is as handsome as his son. Astonished that Evie has lost her memory, they inform her that she’s been married for five years. They call her Evelyn. Anderson instructs her not to take calls from the media. When she returns to their home, Evie explores. Oliver has an expensive wardrobe suiting the image of a young professional. Evie finds a recording room with files from her true crime podcast. On a notepad, she’s crossed out a phrase: “Adjective order???” (24).

The house has no personal traces, and Evie wonders “how [her] preferences could have changed so dramatically” (25). Gwendolyn visits and discusses Oliver’s funeral arrangements. Evie wishes she could get in touch with her parents or Bree. She appears to have no books, no job, and no friends besides someone named Chloe. Gwendolyn says Evie didn’t really have people around her because Oliver adored her enough for everyone.

Evie escapes the funeral and finds reporters waiting outside. She spots the man she thinks is her Uber driver and climbs into his car. She tries to book a flight to Newcastle, where her parents live, and her credit card is rejected. She checks her bank account and finds a negative balance; Oliver was giving her an allowance, now spent. Evie realizes that her driver isn’t from Uber but is in fact a photojournalist.

Drew read about Evie’s amnesia and is concerned about how she’ll react if he forces memories on her. Drew doesn’t want to get back on the roller coaster of emotion that Evie puts him through; she’s “a wrecking ball in [his] love life yet again, acting like she has no idea [they] used to be friends” (34). The radio reports on Evie’s fleeing the funeral. A song on the radio reminds Drew of Evie and Oliver’s first fight. Drew can see she has no one else to turn to.

Evie thinks that Drew has a moody personality that reminds her of the actor James Dean. She tries to explain that she’s like Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30 but “without the magic-dust explanation, the cool magazine career, or the long-suffering childhood love interest hovering reluctantly in the wings” (42). She wants to see her parents, and Drew offers to drive her to their home. A call comes in from someone named Chloe, and Drew declines the call. The Hawkesbury River bridge is familiar to Evie, the connection between her Sydney and Newcastle worlds. She looks at Drew’s work online and asks what he was doing at the funeral. He says he had a history with Oliver.

When Evie cut Drew out of her life, she made him promise never to contact her again. He doesn’t believe he could tell her anything she’d want to hear. He can also see that Evie doesn’t remember him. He takes her to her childhood home, where a strange woman answers the door. She informs them that Christine and David Hudson moved away after they lost their daughter.

Evie wonders what could possibly have happened between her and her parents. She and Drew sit to regroup. He tells her he’s thinking of taking a magazine job in New York. Evie doesn’t want Drew to leave her. She has a brief memory of losing Bree at a party, then a vague memory of light and an overpowering emotional rush. Drew, calling her Versace, invites her to get a drink.

Drew asks himself why he’s offered to stay and realizes he wants this chance to connect with the Evie he once knew. She shares that the cause of her amnesia seems to be psychological: “my conscious mind wants me to forget my life” (62). Drew fears what she’ll think if memories of their time together come flashing back. Evie shows him the notebook where she’s taking notes on her life and mentions her podcast with her obsession with forensic linguistics. She deduces from her social media account that she met Oliver at 17. “Sixteen,” Drew thinks. “But you met me first” (66).

Evie attends the meeting of the photography club, which meets at the boys’ school near her girls’ school. She jokes with Bree that she’s only interested in 18th-century men. The leader of the club, Drew Kennedy, is a brooding boy with troubled brown eyes. He says they need a theme for their exhibit. Evie, thinking of a website where pictures of Bree ended up without her consent, suggests an exhibit of honest, realistic pictures of girls. The room full of boys does not embrace this idea.

Drew is in the extracurricular club to improve his chances of getting into a competitive art school, but he’s been struggling to keep up with school since his mother got sick. He apologizes to Evie after the meeting for seeming to reject her idea. He feels vulnerable and concerned she’ll be able to scale the walls he’s put around himself. Drew proposes Evie’s exhibit idea to the principal.

Evie is nervous at the party she let Bree drag her to, and she phones her mom. She spots Drew talking with a girl and can imagine him as the hero in an Emily Brontë novel—he appears brooding and mysterious, like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Drew calls to her right before a group of brawling boys push her into the pool.

Underwater, Evie is struck by the sight of a beautiful boy. She is dragged from the pool, then stares as the boy climbs out, his white shirt stuck to his body. She thinks, “It’s Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice. Dan Stevens in Sense and Sensibility. Rupert Friend in The Young Victoria” (85). Evie ignores Drew. The boy introduces himself as Oliver Roche. He kisses her hand, and Evie is convinced that Oliver Roche is her future.

Drew returns home and wakes his mother to make sure she takes her medications. She works as a nurse, and Drew’s father, whom he’s never met, pays for his school fees. Drew worries for his mother but tries to pretend, for her sake, that he’s fine. His mother guesses he met someone at the party.

Evie can’t stop thinking about Oliver Roche. Bree remarks that Drew is cute. When Evie arrives at the photography club meeting, Oliver is there. He gives her a sort of bow, and Evie thinks, “It’s almost as if he’s done his homework on me, found out my obsession with period drama, and is deliberately communicating in my mother tongue” (96). He’s her dream boyfriend come to life. He hints that his black eye has something to do with her.

Drew feels pained watching Evie fall in love with Oliver, who reveals that her theme has been chosen for the exhibit. Drew has seen Oliver do this before, adopting a new personality to attract a girl. Someone says there’s a rumor that Drew is going to Evie’s formal with her. Drew is horrified, but Evie rescues him and says it’s true.