No. Absolutely not. This is a small island, not nearly as well-known or popular as a place like Nant— “Jade!” again, and pair of long, suntanned legs appear in Juliana’s line of vision. Her gaze follows the legs up and up, past a pair of shorts, a cropped tank, until she gets to the face of—“Shelly!” says the owner of the legs. “It’s me, Shelly Salazar! From Boston College. It’sme.”She points to herself, ostensibly to clarify the “me” she’s talking about.
Ho-ly shit. No.What?No. But it is, it’s Shelly. Juliana scrambles to her feet, scrambles for a foothold, mental or physical or both, scrambles for her composure, wills her heartbeat to settle. “Hey, hi. Wow. Shelly.”
“I had a feeling I’d run into you,” says Shelly.
“You did?”
“I did! When someone said the founder of LookBook had just bought that big house over by Great Salt, I thought to myself, It’s only a matter of time until I run into Jade!”
“Juliana.”
“Juliana! I know that, from the articles. I just keep forgetting.” Shelly beams so hard Juliana wonders if her jaw hurts. “And look, here we are.”
“Here we are,” says Juliana. She squints up at Shelly. Shelly is tall, and Juliana is petite, so even though they’re on equal footing the setup feels almost purposefully unequal.
“I mean, tbh, I didn’t believe it at first,” says Shelly. “Why Block Island, of all places, for you to buy a home? It seems so... random.”
Juliana steels herself. Do not, she tells herself, forget who you are. Do not forget where you came from. “You’rehere,” Juliana points out.
Shelly purses her lips and nods. “You’re right. I’m here. But that was random too. I was in New York, and a few years ago I got sent up here on an assignment, when I worked in book publicity. I fell in love with it, but of course I was like, Calm down, Shelly, you can’t just up and move your whole life to Block Island.” She looks at Juliana expectantly, so Juliana says, “Right.”
“But then, I was just getting out of this terrible relationship, don’t get me started onthat...”
“I won’t,” says Juliana.
“And I came up here to lick my wounds. I ended up doing a couple of freelance jobs and—well, I never left. So here I am.”
“Here you are,” says Juliana. “Here you definitely are.”
“And hereyouare. I can’t believe it. Jade Gordon. Sorry. Juliana.”
“Jade was—a nickname. I dropped it when I started my business.”
“I didn’t know Jade was a nickname for Juliana,” Shelly muses.
Funny how you don’t know everything, thinks Juliana. Funny how you all thought you knew more than me, and look at us now.
“It’s like you fell off the face of the earth!” Shelly continues. “You never come to any of the BC stuff. A bunch of us try to get together every three years or so. We rotate locations, usually over a long weekend. We have a blast. We’ve done, let’s see, Nantucket, and Nashville, and Napa... We invited you!”
Yes, Juliana knows this; she’s received invitations through her office, but she has never responded. Her scars from BC run deep.
“I never got any of those invitations,” she says.
“Well, you were sobusy. Of course, we knew what you were doing with LookBook.” Shelly beams. “I’ve read all the articles. You’re everywhere!”
“Everywhere,” agrees Juliana. Damn right she is.Forbes’s 30 Under 30.Fast Company’s best female entrepreneurs. TheHow I BuiltThispodcast. The spread inVogue.An article about her foundation in theNew York Times.And on and on.
“So we figured you were just too occupied, you know, being rich and famous.”
“Right.” Juliana feels a pinching along her collarbone: this is her anxiety tell. (Who is she going to tell, though?) So far, a lot of her wealth is paper wealth, but there is no way in hell she’s going to admit that to Shelly. Fake it until you make it, etc. Juliana’s been faking it one way or another her whole life. Now she’s making it, and she’s not going to kowtow to Shelly or anyone else.
She stretched to buy the Block Island house, and stretched further to decorate it. The car, the clothes, all of it—they are the possessions of the person she will be in October more than the person she is right now. But this is how business works; this the nature of entrepreneurship. You build your life on spec. It’s all so close to her now that she can taste it. She can reach out and touch it. She just can’t have it quite yet.
“We’re so proud of you! Our little Jade, from the dorm!”
“Juliana.”
“I heard about the parties at your house, and I thought, That can’t be true! Not the JadeIknow! I mean—”
