“Oh, I thought I could—”
Viv doesn’t give me time to sit on the fluffy bed or empty my increasingly agitated bladder; she grabs my arm and drags me from my new room and down the hall.
I note the other three bedrooms as we pass—their doors are all ajar. The decor is slightly different in each one, and mine is definitely the smallest, but the other three have the same port windows and same snow-white bedding.
Viv yanks me into the center of the billiards room. She twirls me around like a debutante and the room—complete with a felted pool table, strip of bar against one wall, and round high-tops—blurs.
“Oh my God, you did it!” a shrill voice echoes as I spin. “You actually hired her on the spot?”
“Hell yeah, she’s the tits,” Viv replies, letting me go so that I lurch to the side.
Disoriented, I blink and clear my throat, focusing on the three girls gathered around the pool table. At first, I think I’m still spinning because I’m seeing double. Then I realize: twins.
But not identical. At least, not anymore. One of the twins has clearly had a good amount of work done, which is interesting to see in contrast with her sister, who hasn’t.
“Girls, meet Charlie.” Viv flips a palm toward the ceiling and gestures at me like she’s a game show host and I’m a shiny prize. “Introduce yourselves.”
It’s a normal enough request, but the way she says it makes me glance at her—it’s a command, like it’s absolutely mandatory.
The others obey.
“I’m Fiona,” says the girl closest to the pool table. She’s clutching a cue stick and a beer, and she has the most immaculately done makeup I’ve ever seen. “Fee for short.”
She grins at me, her purple-painted lips revealing blindingly white teeth. Fiona is pretty and curvy, adorned with a waterfall of pastel pink hair and matte black stiletto nails. Her all black romper makes her dewy skin and shimmery eyeshadow pop.
“Charlie. Nice to meet you.”
One of the twins, the one without plastic surgery, nods and smiles at me. “I’m Rachel.”
Rachel and her sister both have the same dark brown skin, the same coiled knot of braids, the same beautiful eyes. But I’ll have no problem telling them apart—Rachel is slender and willowy, with dainty features. She’s wearing billowing yoga pants and a loose tank top. Her sister, on the other hand, is in a hot pink workout set that is so tight, I’m not sure how she’s breathing. The other twin’s breasts have clearly been augmented, her lips filled, and her nose done.
“I’m Ashley,” the plastic surgery twin says, giving me a half smile. Ashley looks like Rachel if Rachel used one of those crazyInstagram filters that changes the shape of your face. It’s bizarre to see them standing next to each other looking so similar and yet so markedly different.
Ashley’s hazel eyes take in my sweaty hair, my strip-mall shirt, my old Converse.
I’m suddenly hyperaware that I’m a twenty-four-year-old queer girl from the Midwest with zero fashion sense and a tenuous grasp on who I’m supposed to be pretending to be. I’m not the kind of influencers these women are.
These girls are confident. They are gorgeous. And they are young. Rachel and Ashley look to be all of twenty-two, and I peg Fiona at twenty-three at the oldest. I glance at Viv. Like Fiona, she’s got a full face of makeup, but unlike Fiona, it’s hard to see her underneath it all. I can’t tell her age, but I doubt she’s that much older than I am.
“Nice to meet you,” I say slowly. “I look forward to getting to know you all better.”
“The cool thing aboutEmpressis that all of us have different niches,” Viv says to me. “We curated it that way, so that all our content creators bring something new to the table. Not just toEmpress, but to us as a group as well. Fiona is an amazing makeup artist. Ashley makes me jealous with her crazy yoga poses, and Rachel is a badass nutritionist. She keeps us all feeling healthy and looking great.”
“And Viv here does it all,” Rachel, the plastic-surgery-free twin, offers. “She can do a dance routineandshow off a new workouttrend. Plus, she’s the queen of lifestyle content. I mean, look where we live.” There’s a reverence in her voice, and I can’t tell if it’s forEmpressor Viv.
“A beer, Fee?” Viv suddenly asks, spotting the green bottle in the pink-haired girl’s hand.
Fiona’s lip twists for a second, then she pouts. “Yeah, one, Viv. I had a rough morning. The look I’m working on isn’t turning out how I want, and it’s stressing me out.”
“All right, whatever. Your body, your choice,” Viv replies, almost offhandedly, but Fiona’s eyes follow Viv as she loses interest and turns to the twins instead. “Girls, shall we show Char the roof deck?”
Fiona hesitates, looking from Viv to the twins, as if she’s not sure she’s been included. She catches me watching, smiles, and abandons her beer on the bar at the side of the room. The bottle is half full.
The five of us go up the stairs, past the main level, and all the way to the top floor.
We’re deposited into the middle of a smaller version of the living room downstairs. It’s an open space with several gray leather love seats, huge glass doors overlooking the rooftop deck, and geometric floor vases. Two short hallways jut to the right and left, leading to the final bedrooms.
I expect Viv to show me the other rooms, especially after boasting about her VIP suite, but instead she walks over to the glass doors and leads us outside onto the rooftop deck. There’s an outdoor barunder a huge canopy awning, lounge chairs, and an industrial-sized grill. There’s even an outdoor gym, its equipment protected from the elements by plexiglass walls. It must be like working out in a bubble.
