It shows me grabbing the hiking bag, clipping it on, and jumping into the frame so it bounces against my back. I thought it would be a cute little clip to add in my hiking GRWM, but all you can see on the screen is my constipated look of pain before I lurch forward from the weight of the pack.
“Earth to Lola,” Maisie says from the kitchen, and I give her a sheepish look as I close out the app. Her eyes drift away from me and onto the other items in the living room — the brand-new hiking shoes on the ground, piles and piles of leggings and zip-up hoodies on the couch, lights and chargers and a million other gadgets heaped onto the armchair. When her eyes find mine again, her eyebrows have nearly disappeared into her chocolate brown hair.
“Lola,” she says, shaking her head and turning to pour a mug of coffee. “No way you’re actually doing that thing.”
“It’s an opportunity to travel the world, Maisie.”
“Yeah, sure, but half of the world is like, the outdoors. And you hate that stuff.”
A brief flicker of shame lights through me at the history I’ve kept hidden from her, but I tamp it down. It’s not like she wants to hear my little sob story background.
Maisie grew up in a family of twelve and had to claw her way through school while helping to take care of her siblings. Still, she managed to graduate at the top of her class and get into an amazing medical program here in Seattle.
“You’re right.” I shoot her a grin to cover the insecurity I’m feeling. “But I hatenotwinning a free trip to travel the world more.”
I accept a mug of coffee from her and settle in at the breakfast bar, taking a break from my packing to enjoy the warm, soothing taste of the pecan coffee, the caffeine buzzing pleasantly through my veins.
The Ecotra thing is not so much a free trip as it is a brand deal of sorts, and I fully intend to win.
Ecotra is a travel agency that focuses on ethical and sustainable travel. Instead of partnering with massive hotel chains, they make deals with farmers and local tour guide companies across the world. When you go on a trip with them, you’ll end up staying in the last surviving independently owned hotel in the area, or a bed and breakfast with a back story.
That, or you’ll be camping on the side of a mountain, preparing yourself for a grueling hike in the Swiss Alps. That’s part of their brand image — travel meeting nature, a love for the environment going hand-in-hand with a love for history and culture. The perfect spokesperson for the brand would be able to move seamlessly from city to country to the thick of the rain forest, and my video submission has to prove to Ecotra that I’m that girl.
Luckily, living in Seattle is perfect for that. The city is bustling and fresh, and Washington state is rife with outdoorsy opportunities. Or so I’m told.
“And where did you hear of this campsite, again?” Maisie asks, once her coffee cup is nearly empty.
I wave my hand at her. “A friend at one of those networking events. They mentioned going out there with a group a few summers ago for a campaign with the Washington State Park Association.”
Maisie pauses before setting her mug in the sink. “Right. I’m just worried about you going on your own. Don’t you have another influencer friend who could come with you?”
There’s only one other person I know for sure is also going for the Ecotra thing. An influencer I follow, whom I’ve seen around the city, but it’s not like we’re really friends. And it’s also not like I want to give up my secret spot to someone who might make better content than me.
“I’ll be fine.” I wave dismissively over my shoulder, toward the pile of stuff littering our living room. “There’s a GPS thing in there somewhere, and a flare gun, I think.”
“See, the wordgundoesn’t actually make me feel any better.”
Maisie disappears to go get ready — either for class, clinicals, a study group, or her internship, I’m not sure — and I turn back to the looming prospect of sorting through and packing all the stuff.
I’m at the point in my influencing journey that, with a little prompting, most brands will ship something to me for free, just in the hopes that I might give it a little exposure. But I amnotat the point yet where sponsorships and paid brand deals are a given. So, all this stuff was free, but it’s not necessarily going to help me pay the rent.
It’s one reason why I need to get this Ecotra thing.
The other reason floats back to mind when my phone buzzes gently in my pocket. Probably an Insta notification, but it could just as easily be another text from my mom. I close my eyes and try to forget the first one, which came through a few months ago and to which I responded with no more than a thumbs up.
Mom:Maybe you could show Darlie around the city!
The thought of it makes my stomach turn and provides a fresh stir of motivation for me to get packed, get in my car, and start up the side of the mountain. If I’m lucky, I won’t even have a cell signal up there. My mom’s texts will get caught somewhere between her phone and mine, rather than pinging right to my hands.
When I came out here to start my journalism program, I thought it would be far enough. New York City and Washington State are about as far apart as you can get in the continental United States.
But apparently, it’s still not a sufficient distance. I’ll have to go international if I want to avoid my mother and her real family.
I’m just finishing dividing the camping gear into two piles — maybe taking, and maybenottaking —when Maisie appears with perfectly straight hair, wearing a gray sweat set that she makes look amazing. If I had it on, it would simply be a groutfit.
“All right, I’m taking off,” she says, grabbing her lunch from the counter and moving to the door. I shove down any trepidation I feel and flash her a wide, steady grin, hoping it will make her stop freaking out, too.
Pausing on the welcome mat, she sighs and says, “Just do me a favor, Lols?”
