Chapter 20
If we were smarter, we’d have parked facing west. Instead, with nothing covering the windshield, we wake as soon as the sun peeks over the horizon and blasts us in the face.
Nate stretches and groans, a low, sleepy sound that conjures thoughts of rumpled bedsheets and skin-warmed pillows.
“Sorry,” I say, my voice raspy. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
Road trip detritus is sprinkled throughout the car. My water bottle is in the rear cupholder, with a few stale ounces remaining. I swirl the water around my mouth before swallowing.
“We needed the rest,” he says. “Besides, it’ll be easier to find him today. We’ll be staying in the same spot as him.”
“Livvie texted us.” I open the message. “They’re on the earliest flight, so they should be here by late morning. The first thing I’m doing when we get there is brushing my teeth.”
Nate rubs his eyes. “Last night I thought I never wanted to get wet again, but the first thing I’m doing when we get there is taking a shower.”
We climb out of the car and do laps up and down the rows to wake up.
Most of the campground is quiet, with shadowy lumps under blankets barely visible through car windows.
One group of people is sprawled in a circle of folding chairs around a cooler, debriefing over canned cold brew.
Outside the Jeep, we bum a couple bananas off Madison.
“Ready for today?” she asks too brightly for a person who spent the night adjacent to the remnants of vomit.
“We’re heading out in a bit,” I say. “Meeting friends in a different lot.”
Nate holds up his banana. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Enjoy the rest of the weekend!” I add. For the last twelve hours I’ve felt solidarity with everyone else we’ve shared this humble campground with. Been grateful for their generosity. Admired their resilience.
Today, my feelings are more like so long, suckers. I am no longer sure I would’ve been on the right side of the French Revolution.
When Livvie and Kyla arrive at the VIP campground, Nate and I have been hovering outside the entrance for forty-five minutes.
We are all frizz and grime, dressed in yesterday’s wrinkled clothes.
Livvie is wearing a white sleeveless bell-bottomed jumpsuit.
Kyla’s in a fringed suede miniskirt and matching top.
Their blowouts are immaculate, and they have coordinated metallic temporary tattoos on their biceps.
It feels like two goddesses have descended from the heavens to save us from squalor.
The RV is sponsored by Beach House mainstay Laguna Boys Cerezita Rum, and it’s branded with giant versions of the company’s logo.
Inside, it’s a futuristic mix of faux reddish wood, bright crimson leather, and chrome.
There are two sofas at the front, then a dining table and kitchenette.
At the back is a bedroom with a door that shuts for privacy and a truly luxurious bathroom, with a glass-enclosed shower and marble sink.
Nate makes a beeline for it, his overstuffed duffel bag in hand.
Livvie flings open the closet and fills it with garment bags. “Feel free to borrow anything you want. I brought tons of clothes. Oh, and we’ll take the couches tonight.”
I hover in a half squat over the one I was about to sit on. If they sleep on the couches, that leaves only the bed. “Are you sure?”
“I can’t sleep next to Kyla. She gets in my face and mouth-breathes all over me.”
“In a way that my future husband will find adorable,” Kyla adds. She spins around and points at me. “Not that I need a man. Wait, am I allowed to hook up tonight?”
I’m still stuck on the sharing-a-bed-with-Nate thing. “Here? Uh, can you text us, so we know not to come back until you’re done?”
“Ew, no, I’m not bringing someone back to our sanctuary.”
“Oh,” I say, as the real meaning of her question clicks. “You know I’m not actually an authority on relationships, right? Or not being in a relationship.”
Livvie grabs a stick of deodorant from her suitcase. “Isn’t that your whole thing?”
I slump on the couch. “My boss wants it to be my thing. I don’t have any relevant expertise, but apparently that doesn’t matter. I guess it’s more about how you present yourself than what you know.”
“Sounds kind of like Sloane,” Kyla says.
“She was on my Beach House season. And now she’s the TikTok nanny.
She only worked in childcare for, like, two months, but she gives advice to parents and does reaction videos to people’s babysitter horror stories.
She just got a sponsorship from some educational toy subscription box. ”
“Oh,” I say, unsure whether they’re friends with this person. “Good for her?”
Livvie snorts. “It’s sketchy. There are actual experts online, don’t get me wrong. I saw a post from a gynecologist that convinced me to ask my doctor about fibroids, and that’s how I got diagnosed. But there are a lot of bullshitters too.”
“Don’t you think that’s on the people who listen to them, though?” Kyla uncaps her lip liner. “If I base my parenting strategy on something posted by a girl with charisma and funny facial expressions without making sure she has credentials, that’s my fault.”
I want to talk this out further, but Livvie grabs her slouchy bedazzled shoulder bag. “Let’s go take pictures so we can move on to parenting a couple cocktails, yeah?”
We say our goodbyes, Livvie urging me again to borrow from her wardrobe, and they promise to text me as soon as they spot Logan. By the time Nate slides open the bathroom door and emerges in clean clothes and a cloud of steam, I’ve laid out my own shower supplies and an outfit on the bed.
“We’re sleeping here,” I explain, examining the top I snagged from Livvie. “Livvie doesn’t want to share with Kyla.”
“Oh,” Nate says. The line between his eyebrows appears for a millisecond, but his face is otherwise inscrutable.
Annoyance flares inside me. The prospect of sleeping next to him makes me as shaky as a tower of Jell-O blocks, but his only reaction is Oh ?
“How was the shower?” I ask.
He’s zoned out, looking at the bed. “Okay,” he says automatically, then shakes his head. “I mean, no, it was incredible. I tried to keep it short so you’d have hot water.”
My thanks is snippy, and I stomp off to take my own shower.
When I step out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, my skin is scrubbed clean and I’m dressed in Livvie’s white crop top, pink miniskirt, and denim jacket, with my own mostly dry silver cowboy boots.
My cheekbones and eyes are illuminated with holographic highlighter, and my wet hair is back in a low bun.
I want to watch his face when he sees me, in case I get that movie makeover moment where my beauty gobsmacks him and the power of his newfound devotion brings him to his knees, but I resist. I grab my bag, breeze past him, and slide my sunglasses on. “Ready?”
And when he clambers down the steps after me and answers, “Ready,” in an unsteady voice, I don’t read anything into it.
In the VIP lounge area at the center of the campground, people sit around drinking mimosas and eating a late breakfast from a well-stocked buffet.
There are large TVs streaming the festival for anyone too comfortable, hungover, or disinterested to plop their ass into a golf cart and ride over to see it themselves.
The shows haven’t started yet, so the TVs are currently showing highlights from last night.
“I don’t know if I can ever go back to being a normal person,” Nate says as he settles into a lounge chair and digs into a plate of cheesy eggs with turkey bacon and fresh tomatoes from the omelet station.
“In the last hour, between the shower and this food, I’ve grown accustomed to a VIP lifestyle.
I’ll accept nothing less from here on out. ”
“If you were in my downline, I could manipulate you so easily.” I take a bite of my egg whites and veggies and pretend to crack my neck.
“?‘This year, our annual convention is in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah, where our thriving company was founded! Convention is great because it’s so inspiring to connect with the Jolee community. You know, if you can recruit just one more person to join your team before month-end, you’ll hit Lilac status, and that comes with incredible perks.
You’ll get to hang with us in the Go-Getter Lounge, and that means free champagne and mini manis with other top consultants between presentations.
You don’t want to miss out on that! I love how Jolee spoils us as a reward for investing in ourselves.
Speaking of which—and this is totally confidential, I shouldn’t even be telling you—I’m treating all the girls on my team who come to Convention to the cutest Kate Spade business card holders!
I love you all so much. Now, should we see if that cousin of yours is free for a quick call? ’?”
Imitating my mother feels slimy in a disturbingly familiar way. This is exactly how I feel wrestling with the idea of being Single Girl Quinn. Of selling myself as a symbol of something. Convincing people to emotionally invest in me. It’s artificial. Calculating.
A piece of egg falls off Nate’s fork as he stares at me wide-eyed. “That was terrifying. Is that really how it works?”
“Oh, yeah.” I swallow the unsettled feeling. “If you were a mom, I’d throw in a guilt trip about how you’d get to spend more quality time with your kids if you quit your day job to focus on Jolee. At least that was one of my mom’s go-to strategies. Which was funny, because she worked constantly.”
In fact, she’d have a million conversations just like this fake one from her home office while I sat on the couch, waiting for her to come back to the living room so we could start an episode of New Girl. Often, I could still hear her on the phone when I trudged up to bed two hours later.