My chest warms. Maybe this job will allow Emily and I to get closer too. She’s younger than me, but she’s already found her soulmate, settled down, and started a family. Of course, that kind of trajectory is typical in Wisconsin, where half the state marries after they graduate, but it’s caused a disconnect between us. Our lives are very different.
A notification appears at the top of my screen—Instagram. What a surprise. Reluctantly, I open the app.
It’s been hard to run my account since Sage’s death. To be honest, it was hard to run the page before that too. Once I found out aboutA Song of Scales and Salt, I was too demoralized to post as often as I used to. But @ChaptersWithCharlie was functioning enough to get me a job onEmpress, so maybe I shouldn’t complain about how much it annoys me. It’s also been keeping me afloat—a few sponsored posts I lined up right before Sage’s death gave me the funds to get to Florida and feed myself, which isn’t nothing.
When my former best friend died, I couldn’t go back to my job at the coffee shop. We spent so much time together there. We talked about books and writing and our publishing dreams while sittingat the espresso bar. I quit over email, fingers heavy as I typed out the message on my phone. Not long after that, I got fired from my nanny position when I forgot to pick up Ellie from preschool. It was for the best. The little girl had noticed my mood change, kept asking me why my face was so sad. I didn’t know how to tell her that my friend drowned after hitting a bunch of bestseller lists.
The only stream of revenue that stayed in my life was @ChaptersWithCharlie. And even though I hated it because it reminded me of everything I had lost, its pocket change kept me alive until I had the wherewithal to start a real job search.
But if I get one more DM or comment asking me to reviewA Song of Scales and Salt, I am going to tear my skin off.
I finish “liking” and responding to people’s comments on my latest post—a short video of me flipping through the hot new thriller all the celebrities are apparently raving about—and throw my phone on the bedspread. I do this because I have to, not because I like it. It’s draining to adopt a persona so different from who I am in real life—the bookstagrammer I pretend to be is cheery, friendly, and positive, not anxious and sarcastic. I’ll have to find a way to hide my disconnect from @ChaptersWithCharlie when I’m around the other girls.
I need this—the money—and I also need the content. Working onEmpresswill create an influx of followers, which means more partnerships, more money, more connections. Maybe I can leverage this for a better job, and retire @ChaptersWithCharlie for good.I could get a real marketing job, perhaps. Or be a social media coordinator for a company that washes cars or sells birdseed. Anything that gets me away from my past life and lets me forget what happened.
It’s difficult staying in bookish spaces when I can’t write anymore.
“Ashley, wait!” The voice comes from the hallway outside my room, muffled and faint.
I sit up, perking toward the closed door. With the towel still clutched around my chest, I quietly ease from the bed and creep over, pressing an ear against the seam between door and frame.
Footsteps, pattering past my room. The hiss of an inhale. Then momentary silence.
“I’m sorry I’m not jumping for joy.” I can barely make out the voices through the ambient hum of the yacht, but it sounds like they’re farther down the hall, near the billiards room.
“She seems nice,” the first voice says.
I can’t help it. Softly, gently, like I’m trying not to wake a sleeping baby, I twist the handle and let the door to my cabin crack open a centimeter. A glance at the sliver of hallway tells me that whoever is talking isn’t in front of my room, so hopefully they won’t notice that my door is ajar. And now I can hear the speakers much better.
“It’s too soon. And what was that outfit? I don’t think she’s a good fit.”
It’s the twins, I realize. And they’re talking about me.
I rack my brain, trying to picture their accounts in my head.Ashley, the one with plastic surgery, does yoga. And Rachel does…wellness? No, nutrition!
“Come on, don’t be that way, Ashley,” Rachel admonishes her twin.
“There’s something fake about her,” Ashley insists, then lowers her voice as if Rachel has given her a warning look. “Did you look at her page? How she sounds in her videos and captions doesn’t match with the girl we just met.”
“So? She’s probably nervous.”
“Did you see that video she posted last week? You can’t tell me that’s the same person as the awkward chick who looked at all of us like we were zoo animals earlier,” Ashley whispers, the sizzle of her voice carrying down the hall to my door.
I know what video she’s talking about. It’s me, posing with a debut rom-com, smiling, dressed in an outfit that exactly matches the bright, colorful cover. In the video, I confidently give the book five stars, even reading the FMC’s monologue about online dating out loud like I’m auditioning to be the audiobook narrator. In reality, I found the characters too treacly sweet and the dialogue clunky. But it’s easy to lie online. Especially when you’re pretending to be someone else. Someone you used to be very close to.
Nevertheless, Ashley’s words sting my cheeks. I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but it’s too late to stop now. It’s like picking off a scab—it hurts, but I have to see what’s underneath.
“Stop it, Ashley,” Rachel murmurs. “I hate when you do this.”
A pause. “Do what?”
“You know what. Pretend to be ruder than you are.”
Ashley scoffs. “Thisiswho I am. Not everyone is as sweet and pure as you.”
“Ashley,” Rachel says, her voice weary.
“What?” Ashley continues. “We might be twins, but that doesn’t mean we have the same personality.” Then softer, so low I almost can’t hear her, she adds, “We can’t.”
