Chapter 11
I swallow. Maybe I can play stupid. “What about me?”
“Any ideas for your first post on Empress?” Viv asks, clearly expecting me to be bursting with thousands of ideas, inspired by the opportunity and luxury.
“I mean you’ll obviously need to collaborate on our welcome post and create your own.
And you haven’t reshared any of our tagged posts from last night; you should do that ASAP.
But you need to follow it up with something good. ”
“This week?” She nods, and my hands curl into fists on my lap. “I don’t have any books here. I-I’m not sure—”
Viv must see the panic on my face, because she comes closer, her voice softening. “Where do you want to take @ChaptersWithCharlie next?”
I shift on the love seat so that my legs are tucked underneath me.
I remember Rachel telling me to ask Viv for help because she would be happy to take charge.
I look up at Viv. “To be honest, I need some inspiration. I want to…pivot my page. To fit in more with Empress and its aesthetic. But you’ve seen my stuff.
It’s very casual. Bookish. I’m not sure how to elevate that. ”
Viv moves closer, nearly salivating at my words.
“Awesome. I have some ideas, like getting you in front of the camera more often.” She holds up a hand when she sees my mouth open.
“Yes, I know, you are already far more visible than some of the other book influencers. But I mean metaphorically. People want authenticity these days. They want to feel like they really know you. Do your followers know you, Charlie?”
No. No, of course they don’t. I act like Sage, mimicking her mannerisms and bubbly personality in my posts.
I never talk about my real life. Despite Sage’s ulterior motives for my account—using it as a springboard for our own books—I never mentioned that I was a writer.
I don’t talk about my stories or goals or personal life.
And the star ratings are bullshit; I never go below four stars, even if I hated a book.
All those thousands of followers have no idea that my best friend stole my idea, wrote the debut novel that was supposed to be mine, and then died, leaving me behind with a suitcase full of trauma and regret. If they did, maybe they’d stop asking me to review A Song of Scales and Salt.
I shiver, reminded of the woman I thought I saw in the water this morning.
No wonder I’m seeing things. I’ve had to face my ex–best friend more often in the past two days than I have in the past two months.
And I’m not ready for it. It’s too prickly, too jagged with emotions I can’t handle feeling right now. I shove the memories away.
“I’m down to try to be more authentic,” I finally say. “I’m willing to learn.”
Viv smiles. “Good, because what we do is hard work. Even appearing authentic online is something you have to curate. But I can help you do that.”
“Yeah, ’cause your posts are so relatable,” Piper mutters, pushing her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose so she can stare at Viv.
Viv shoots her a look. “My brand is luxury. It would be stupid for me to try to be relatable. I have to be enviable. I have to be hated.”
“Well that certainly isn’t hard for you.”
“Piper,” Rachel hisses, a warning in her voice.
“What? I’m kidding around,” Piper says, rolling her eyes and kicking her legs up to launch herself from her chair. She shoves her sunglasses back into place. “I’m getting a drink.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Viv says, her voice low.
Rachel and Ashley are looking between Piper and Viv, as if watching two different pots of water, trying to figure out which one is going to reach boiling point first.
Fiona chimes in, pitching her voice to make it sound more cheerful. “Let me do your makeup instead, Pip. I have an idea that would look gorgeous with your outfit.”
“Let her go,” Viv says, voice frosty. She watches Piper stroll over to the fridge, then turns back to me.
“I’ll help you, Char. I can get you to where you want to go.
Besides, we’ll need to work together closely for the first few weeks as I get you integrated.
We have a very specific brand voice you’ll need to learn for captions and comments. ”
“Sure.” It’s hitting me that this is a full-time job, not an excuse to sit around on a fancy boat all day and take photos.
I’ll have to plan content. I’ll have to create that content.
I’ll have to monitor it and engage with it.
And I’ll have to do it twice, since I’ll be expected to contribute to Empress’s pages as well.
I’m almost relieved. The busier I am, the less I can think about the past and what happened with Sage. A dark spiral of regret twists around my limbs, but I push it away.
A glass clinks in the kitchen area. Ice tinkles, and we all pretend we can’t hear the glug of liquid being generously poured even though it’s only a little after noon.
Rachel breaks the silence by turning to me. “What’s Charlie short for? Charlotte?”
Eager for the distraction, I offer Rachel a grateful smile.
“Yeah, my mother loved books. She especially loved the classics. She named my sister and me after Charlotte and Emily Bronte. She was so pissed when I decided to start going by Charlie in high school.” I smile at the memory of my mother racing into the library in our home and pulling out three different copies of Jane Eyre.
She waved them in my face, yelling about how I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of my namesake.
“Well, hopefully she’s cool with it now,” Rachel says.
I swallow. “Uh, actually she died. Got cancer when I was in college. But no, she never really forgave me for shortening my name. She always not-so-secretly hoped I’d write the next Jane Eyre.”
“Oh, shit, Charlie, I’m so sorry.” Rachel’s eyes crinkle as she winces. “Is that why you started reviewing books? To honor her?”
She’s not far off. It was my mother’s death that prompted Sage’s idea for @ChaptersWithCharlie. Sage was even the one who came up with the name.
“You need an outlet,” she said. “Something to take your mind off everything. You’ve talked about doing a bookstagram before.
Now’s the perfect time. Your mom would be happy to see you getting involved and sharing what you’re reading.
And later, when we both have books to promote, you’ll already have an audience of bibliophiles ready to devour our work! ”
She eventually convinced me by saying it would be worth it if I got published, which was all my mother ever wanted, after all.
And Sage’s points made sense: The account could be a good launching point for my writing career.
If I got big enough, maybe I could get connections to publishers, editors, other authors.
When I realized growing my account would involve showing myself on camera, creating a brand, I automatically found myself aping Sage.
I knew her so well—it was easy to pretend I was writing captions as her, drawing in followers with Sage’s trademark extroverted energy.
But after everything that happened, it felt wrong and almost icky to keep imitating her now that she’s gone.
I shy away from the memory of my account’s birth, once again cut by the complexity of it.
Had Sage really been trying to help me after my mother’s death?
Was she being genuine in saying the account could help my career?
Or even then, was she plotting to steal my work?
Even then, did she see me not as a friend, but a competitor?
“Yeah,” I say to Rachel, because it’s not technically a lie. “I started my account because of my mom. It kind of took off from there. But it’s suffered a bit since… Well, since this summer.”
“You’ve had a rough go of it lately, haven’t you?” Rachel asks, sympathy laced in her voice.
“No more than anyone else.” I shift uncomfortably.
Before she announced her book deal and moved out, Sage got me into the habit of downplaying the bad stuff. She would always get annoyed or upset when I was annoyed or upset. In order to make Sage happy, I started to mute any feelings that weren’t positive when I was around her.
“Manifest good things!” she’d say when I bemoaned how hard it was to break into publishing or start drafting. “Don’t drag yourself—or me—down with that negative energy, girl! Get to work and get it done. Trust me.”
“You should tell them,” Rachel says, suddenly.
“What?” I try to decipher the look on her face, but I’m distracted; Viv has perked up like a dog who sees a squirrel. She moves forward, closer to the love seat I’m sitting on, clutching her phone tightly. There’s a distorted reflection of my body on her sleek, reflective black phone case.
“Tell us what?” Ashley asks, finally acknowledging my presence. There’s a note of suspicion in her voice, and I can’t look at her, flashes of Ashley’s mouth glued to Carl’s running through my mind.
“Go on, Charlie. We’re family. You can trust us. Tell them about Sage,” Rachel encourages me.
“Yes, Charlie,” Piper says, flouncing back with a glass of clear liquid that I’m fairly positive isn’t water. “You can definitely trust us.” But she doesn’t look at me, and her tone is wrong. Like she’s suppressing sarcasm, pitching her voice higher than it needs to be.
It’s the first time she’s addressed me, and it makes my skin burn.
“Oh, I know about Char’s friend,” Viv says, pulling back slightly, as if she’s disappointed, pointedly ignoring Piper. “She already told me about the death.”
Rachel looks at me. “Tell them the whole story.”
Viv cocks a shaped brow and moves closer again, fingers wrapping around her phone in anticipation.
A bolt of unease goes through me. I told Rachel my full story in confidence. Why is she making me tell the others? It was hard enough to spit out once.