#allgirlband, she tagged an Instagram photo of the cows grazing with stunning autumn foliage behind them. #girlsrule.
When her favorite cow, Daisy, gave birth in their second year, she captured that video. Then Austin took one of Natalie herself, dressed in maternity overalls, her hair pulled back fetchingly in a red bandanna, milking Daisy for the first time after the calf had nursed. She started sending videos to her family, and Mae told her she neededto get them on TikTok and Instagram. She posted the videos to her account. Her followers grew. Scarlett was born. #motherhood.
The first time Natalie used the tradwife hashtag she did it ironically. Semi-ironically. Well, like a quarter ironically. She had baked Austin a cake for his birthday, a three-layer German chocolate number. It took her hours, and it was perfect. She put on an apron and made a video of herself with the cake. Yes, the apron would have been more helpful while she was baking, but better late than never. She took a deep breath; she posted it.
Made my hubby a cake. #tradwife!
She curled her hair, put on a pretty dress, and used it again a couple of days later when she made strawberry jam.Tradwifeas a hashtag, as a movement, was growing, and she threw herself into it headfirst. If she wasn’t going to be an executive at a wearable-tech start-up in Boston, she was definitely, definitely going to be the most successful dairy farmer’s wife the internet had seen.
She lost the baby weight a second time. She was offered the opportunity for sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, brand ambassadorships. She was earning tens of thousands of dollars, then hundreds of thousands. Within a year, she was making more than the farm was. They renovated the milking barn, brought in a decorator, bought that gorgeous baby-blue Viking. She kept cooking, baking, posting, mothering. Theresa died; Caspian was born; Natalie’s empire grew. She had two hundred thousand followers, then three, then four.
She researched curricula and applied to be approved for homeschooling by the State of Vermont Agency of Education. She took photos of Evangeline reading a picture book and Scarlett writing her name in giant block letters on butcher paper she spread out on the floor.
She pickled onions; she made her own granola. Eventually, she reached a million followers, then more.
Six months ago she hired a publicist, Bethany, who secured thisarticle withNew York Magazine, her first traditional media win. Her coming-out party, as it were.
Can this all be undone with one pull quote, a single caption?
She opens Instagram; she searches for tagged posts.
It’s like a car crash I can’t look away
Ladies, I hope you like driving in reverse. Girls like this set us back by 100 years.
If my husband said that about me I’d have the divorce papers drawn up so fast
WTF? Nice closet tho
She closes the app. She opens TikTok, where, oh god, it’s even worse. She pushes the phone away. There’s so much of worth in the article, so many pretty pictures of the milking barn and the addition to the main barn she uses as a schoolroom, with the vintage school desks and the bright white cubbies full of sharpened pencils and writing paper and coloring supplies. What about the photo of the three kids standing next to their favorite cow, Gretchen, who has the best eyelashes of all the cows? Why is nobody talking about Gretchen?
She tries to stay calm but the fury bubbles up. She pours more coffee, pulls the phone back toward her, and calls Austin. He’ll be done with the morning milking by now, taking a breakfast break before he moves on to the rest of the day’s chores, which will probably involves mending the fence by the south pasture. Nobody’s going to call Austin’s work ethic into question: he’s the Energizer Bunny of Hillside Haven.
“Hey, babe!” says Austin. She pictures him in the kitchen, pulling out one of her labeled breakfast casseroles from the refrigerator and following the reheat instructions. (She’d put up a recent videoon batch breakfasts, complete with affiliate links for the color-lock glass food storage bins.) “Buttercup has mastitis. You’ll be happy to know Dr. George is on his way.” The “happy to know” part is a joke between them—Dr. George is the hot vet, and Austin can joke about him because he knows that he himself is even hotter. The thought of Dr. George pulling up to the barn in his brick-red pickup does nothing for Natalie today. She doesn’t even crack a smile. “How’s it going there?” asks Austin.
“Not great,” she says. Her voice is made of steel. “My dad is putting the house on the market. Kara is coming tomorrow. And, have you seen the article?” She tries to keep her voice from going up on the wordarticlebut up it goes.
“He’s putting the house on the market? Whatarticle?”
“The house is a whole other thing. We’re all devastated. Well, Mae and I are devastated. But the article—the link I sent you yesterday.New York Magazine. The one the reporter spent a whole day with us for? The big media hit?”
“Didn’t get a chance.” She hears the clink of a fork against a plate, the water running, the microwave door opening and closing. “Early to bed, early to rise, you know. How’d it come out?”
How did it comeout? “Well, it’s a disaster. It’s a complete disaster.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
He’s chewing now. His unconcern is killing her. It is absolutely killing her! “Because of you!” she says. “Because of what you said!”
“What’d I say?”
“The thing about—”
She hears the chime of their fancy doorbell. “Sorry, babe, I have to run, okay? Dr. George is squeezing me in before another appointment. I’ll look at it later, but whatever it is, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s just an article. I’m sure it’s fine. Love you.”
“It isnotfine!” she says. “I could lose hundreds of followers. Thousands! You know how it works! If there’s a whiff of controversy I can lose the affiliates—” But she’s speaking to nobody; he’s gone.
Caspian says, “Ommy mad.” She releases him from the portable seat and holds him against her.
