Evie Decker is a teenager in her junior and senior years of high school during the novel. She is bright and strong-willed, but overweight and lonely, with only one friend, who is described as "enormously" fat. Evie's life is marked by isolation, both at home, where her father largely neglects her, and at school, where she is mostly shunned by others. After she hears Drumstrings Casey in a radio interview, Evie surprises herself when she calls his name during one of his concerts and snaps his photograph, but this is only the start of an obsession that will lead her into a series of actions that defy convention while demonstrating to all her loyalty to Drum. This commitment, symbolized by the carving of his surname into her forehead, is so intense that it eventually enfolds Drum in marriage, even though he clearly is not physically attracted to her. Evie's force of will dominates Drum, and that will grows ever-stronger throughout the book. Drum is not the only one influenced by Evie's strong presence. She becomes rather infamous at school, and her attendance at Drum's concerts draws many young people there to see the strange girl with the scarred name on her forehead. Even as her marriage to Drum begins to unravel, Evie continues to concoct ways of helping his musical career, but once she becomes pregnant, her single-mindedness starts to shift over toward the impending child. Evie is a person who has learned to live within herself, and whose requirements of love and reassurance from others are minimal. In that way, she is a sad character, because her emotional life is stunted, and yet at the same time her self-sufficiency is admirable. Throughout the novel, she puts her thoughts and energy into a boy who seems unworthy of such devotion, but toward the end of the story, as she begins to focus on the coming baby, it seems as though she finally will have the right recipient of her powerful feelings.
