Gio turns sideways to face her girlfriend. “Whydo you know this about him?”
“Remember when I house-sat last week? I watched his kids and their dog? Well, I thought doing the laundry would be a kind gesture, and the girl was nice about it, but the boy, like,freaked outwhen I went to grab his laundry hamper.”
“Why are you calling themthe girlandthe boy?” I ask.
“Because I can’t remember their names.” Leonie’s eyes widen comically. “It’s either Steven and Taylor or Stephanie and Tyler. We didn’t speak much, it wasn’t written anywhere, and we never directly addressed each other.” She takes a sip of her pilsner. “If it wasn’t obvious, my brother and I aren’t close.”
“Josie, doyouknow your niece’s and nephew’s names?” Gio asks.
I frown. “Meyer and…”
“Ha!” Leonie points at me. “It’shard!”
“My brother lives in North Carolina,” I retort. “I hardly ever see his family. And anyway, I remembered. The girl’s name is Poppy. Their names combined sound like a lemon poppy-seed muffin. It’s a memory trick.”
“The fact that youbothneed a memory trick to remember your older brothers’ children’s names.” Gio rolls her eyes.
“I’ll have to come up with one for Thanksgiving,” Leonie says.
“Anyway.” Gio traces the rim of her beer glass. “He’s a teenager. That math is totally mathing for Tyler-slash-Steven.”
“To show your support of his sexual exploration, you should buy him some new socks for Christmas,” I say with a grin.
“Revenant hasgreatsocks.” Gio winks at me. “Andwehave a discount code.”
“Don’t you dare,” I mutter, my voice darkening with an empty threat, “let Leonie’s older brother’s teenage son masturbate for twenty percent off in this economy.”
“Gosh, sometimes I forget about the CEO thing.” As soon as she says it, Leonie immediately pops her head up and glances around. As if she’s worried she spoke too loud and now I’m about to get swamped by paparazzi. (Which does not happen, now or ever. People are more likely to want a picture with the two of them than with me.)
“Sometimes I forget, too,” I say. Which isn’t true, but I suppose I’m trying to make Leonie feel better about the fact that she doesn’t look at me and thinkchief executive officer.“To be honest, founding Revenant was mostly an accident.”
Giovanna watches me, her expression thoughtful. “I know that’s what you always say, J, but I don’t buy it and I never have. You can act nonchalant when you’ve got helmet hair and sweat around your crotch—”
“So, every other day,” Leonie interjects.
“—but you don’t become a CEO by accident. You care, and you try, and youwant.Just like the rest of us.” Gio winks at me again, this time like she’s in on a secret I’m hiding.
Maybe she’s right, but none of this felt intentional when I started out. The first few designs I posted on Instagram when I was a junior in college—on a secret account—took off right away. Before I knew it, I wasn’t posting only my illustrated designs anymore, but the actual clothing I’d sewn on a machine. Then I was doing drops, making money. Nervously answering questions, showing my face on stories:Where do I get my fabric? How did I learn how to sew? How old am I, and what contour do I use, and what do I study in school?
After a whole year, I finally let the followers know my name. They could see that it wasmebehind Revenant. Me, Josephine Davis. A twenty-one-year-old college senior with a lucrative side hustle ballooning by the day. It wasmethey wanted to see modeling the clothes, testing the designs. Revenant was me, and I was Revenant, and together we were abrand,something new and exciting and wholly different from the half-baked, aloof It Girl I became in high school.
But as soon as I realized what was happening—that people’s opinions ofmewere also their opinions of mydesigns,and vice versa—I took myself out of the spotlight, where I’ve stayed ever since. It was the only way I knew how to protect myself from criticism. To carry on, to believe I wasn’t a doomed failure, even when a design I loved didn’t sell or a perfectly legitimate business critique put me in a spiral about my self-worth.
But at that point, it didn’t matter. Everyone knew my face and my name. I became another archetype: female founder. And throughout my twenties, I watched as the media caricatured me.
I’ve never been anyone’s real-life inspiration. That, I firmly believe. But one thing I’ve always been is everyone’s favorite stranger to follow.
“How’s the bachelorette planning going?” Gio unclips her silver helmet as we climb off our bikes. It’s nine thirty now and the two of us are back at my house.
“That question needs a content warning,” I mutter.
She laughs. “I’m here to help, aren’t I?”
“Everything’s been ordered,” I say, passing through my kitchen to the main area of the house.
My table is an array of pink and white, stacked with cowboy hats, plastic straws, feather boas, shot glass necklaces, a white sash, iced sugar cookies shaped like tequila bottles withDown the hatch, down the aisle!carefully scripted in frosting by a local bakery. On my couch, I’ve lined up the hangover kits: mini packs of Advil, Liquid I.V. supplements, Band-Aids, eye masks, individually wrapped makeup wipes. On the coffee table: tote bags I custom ordered with each bridesmaid’s name. On the floor: a bachelorette sign I’m only halfway finished painting, outlined on a piece of butcher paper I got from an art supply store.
“When it’s my turn for this shit,” Giovanna breathes, “I want to go to a spa here in town with, like, four local friends, and then get cocktails before we fall asleep in our own beds.”
