35. Why Are You an Internet Celebrity?
WHY ARE YOU AN INTERNET CELEbrITY?
PRESENT
“If you get lost, our app has oodles of potential routes.”
Our off-roading guide is basically a low-rent Santa: full white hair, bushy white beard. I’m sure he moonlights as Saint Nick during each Christmas season and gets tipped like crazy.
He gesticulates wildly as he goes through the various safety features, sprinkling in facts about Lāna?i while also telling us how to operate the car.
“This right here is for emergencies—” he starts, before cutting himself off and saying, “You know, Lāna?i only has thirty miles of paved road, but we have three hundred miles of unpaved roads—and that’s if you want to stick to the things other people label roads.
I mean, really, does everything need a label?
Do we have to be married to be committed?
Do I have to have fathered someone to be their daddy? ”
He wiggles bushy eyebrows at us, and it’s an odd look: Kris Kringle, sunburnt and wearing loud Hawaiian shorts, scratching absentmindedly at the beer belly peeking through his “Off-Road This” shirt, while waxing philosophical.
Sometimes, he stops talking to sing along to the music blaring from the old speakers barely hidden by the half-open tent he operates his business out of. This means he’ll be telling us about how to sync the maps and then start crooning Frank Sinatra.
“The most important thing is—” He cuts off, eyes flitting to the ocean. “Now that is a beautiful wave.”
“What’s the most important thing?” I can hear the anxiety in my own voice, but I’m already hating all of this.
The mandatory helmets that smell like dog, the semi-sticky goggles, how rickety the vehicles look, and also that the roads do not .
. . look like roads, or paths, or even really traceable, identifiable indentations.
“What’s that, hon?”
“What’s the ‘most important thing’?”
“Well, love, of course. The most important thing is love.” He scratches at his outie belly button. “And then, of course, fame.” He looks up at the sky. “Then fortune. But since fame can lead to fortune and money can buy love, I guess really, all roads lead back to TikTok.”
It takes real effort to keep my voice calm. “I think you were going to say something important about the vehicles?”
“Was I?”
The wind is picking up, and the sand is somehow clinging to the sunscreen I applied, adhering to me in a way that makes me feel sticky and disgusting even while Khloe and Vi stand by, delicately fanning themselves as though completely unaffected by the heat or grains of beach that are attacking the rest of us en masse.
“Oh!” Mall Santa snaps his fingers. “I was probably meaning to tell you about this.” He taps at the screen, seems to remember the Polaris isn’t actually on yet, and digs in his pocket before shuffling through a large ring of keys, looking for the right one.
After the ignition is turned on, a map appears in the center console, and he points at the little heart in the lower left-hand corner. “If you get lost, just come back to home because—”
Vi and Khloe smile, the gold-star students who know the answer. “It’s where the heart is.”
“That’s right!” Father Christmas spreads his arms out before clapping his hands together loudly, beaming as if he’s just been presented with a precious gift.
I take a deep breath and regret it immediately, coughing through the sand I’ve just swallowed. Though Vi looks a little concerned, I swear a small smile curves over Khloe’s lips.
We take turns signing waivers on iPads. Even wearing cutoffs and a tank top to hide the rash, I’m already sweating. Today is forecasted to be a scorcher, and we have four more hours of this.
Wendell is driving his wife and a couple I’ve barely spoken to, which leaves me driving the twins, both of whom insist their skin needs protection, meaning despite my protests, they’ll sit in the back together while I chauffeur.
Now feels like the appropriate time to tell them I once knocked over a stop sign, that I’ve definitely hit parked vehicles while trying to parallel park, and that I haven’t driven regularly . . . ever.
I’ve always walked or bussed. Basically everywhere.
I’ve just finished signing when my phone pings.
UNKNOWN: Saved my number yet?
ME: bizzy paying attn so eye donut die off roading
UNKNOWN: You don’t seem that stressed.
ME: y u say dat
UNKNOWN: You took the time to spell out eye.
UNKNOWN: Service while whale watching might be awful.
UNKNOWN: Riddles calmed me, but music always helped you. Sending you the playlist I made you, I’ve already checked that it syncs with the Polaris.
I download it immediately, while I have access to reliable Wi-Fi.
Hearing my own breathing echoing back in the mandatory helmet just increases my anxiety. The first song is one I’ve never heard of, “Make Way” by Aloe Blacc. But as soon as the singing starts, as soon as I hear the word legendary followed by clapping, I actually feel . . . lighter.
The rest of the list proceeds in a similar fashion.
There are a couple of Chinese songs Lucas must have remembered from our time together, the Cake melodies Lucas always put on during our practice sessions, and a lot of workout songs with strong beats and repetitive hooks that pull my focus just enough.
Wendell’s car pulls far ahead, and I can feel one of the twins tap on my shoulder, saying something about whether I can go any faster, but it’s frightening, driving a vehicle like this, and I’m firm about maintaining the speed I’m comfortable with, especially because the roads-not-roads are bumpy as hell.
We stop frequently so the twins can get out, de-helmet, and take the appropriate selfies.
Khloe also records a small reel to upload and a separate one for Facebook.
When I ask why they need to upload different clips, Khloe looks at me pityingly, her makeup somehow still perfect while I have sweat tracks staining my face.
“Because we have imitators.” Khloe turns her phone toward me to explain.
“I’m @Khloe_Shindler, but there’s also an account called @Khloe_Shindler_fans, and another that’s @real_Khloe_Shindler.
If I post a video on Instagram first, sometimes one of these accounts steals it.
If they get it uploaded to Facebook before I do, my account gets flagged.
And considering each video brings potential engagement, potential sponsorship?
” Khloe’s using the camera as a mirror even while she explains this to me, adjusting her hair and tilting her face from side to side.
At one point, she drapes herself over the vehicle, making sure the Polaris logo is clearly visible, and raises her eyebrows, angling her body for optimal cleavage.
It’s reminiscent of the Carl’s Jr. ads with women in bikinis holding massive cheeseburgers, a reminder that there doesn’t have to be a link between model and product, just tangible sex appeal.
It’s simultaneously impressive and unnerving, watching Khloe, a college-educated woman in her mid-twenties, expertly contort and transform her face: Sad Khloe! Surprised Khloe. Shy but actually Coquettish Khloe? But damn if Khloe doesn’t look good flipping her hair, creating a perfect frame.
Examined from this angle, it’s easy to see both what Brody must have originally been drawn to—the savviness, the ability to constantly curate—as well as what he must now be doubting. Namely: How much of their relationship is tangibly real?
Vi tells us she’s going to hike just a couple of minutes away to get a solo shot, something about her last chance to be a runaway bride, which leaves me alone with Khloe.
Perfect.
I’m inching toward a shady alcove when Khloe’s voice stops me.
“I’m glad we’re getting this time together.” She isn’t looking at me, but still posing and snapping photos, ever the multitasker. “I wanted to say thank you for helping my sister. But—”
She pauses, fluffing her hair, making me wait.
“He’s obviously a sentimental man, still wearing his father’s watch?
Of course he’s also hung up on you and the grand, romantic idea of the one who got away.
” She tears herself away from her phone for long enough to look at me finally.
“And I can kind of see it. You were the cute girl at a college full of geeks, not all of whom were going to make it, and good for you, picking Lucas out from the crowd.”
“You’re quite good at this,” I say.
You’re kind of a sociopath-level manipulator, I think, twisting reality like a knife, one cruel dig at a time.
“But human being to human being, here, no one of Lucas’s caliber will drive a Honda Civic forever. You’re what he could afford then.”
“That’s a rather mercenary view on relationships.”
“I’m realistic, and I know the exact ways I’d be an asset to a man like Lucas.”
She doesn’t need to say all the ways in which I’d be a liability.
I smile now because Khloe doesn’t know the half of it, doesn’t know all the ways in which I’d be far more than a deficit on his spreadsheet. Khloe is clearly taken off guard by my smile, and I feel a small, petty thrill of satisfaction. Still, the woman is nothing if not tenacious.
“I’d be far more than decorative. I’ve networks to help Lucas expand, connections that someone of his background might not otherwise have.”
“He’s done well enough without.”
“True.” She smiles, waits a beat. “Except, what do you have to offer him?”
“A megalomaniacal father, a narcissistic mother, rainbow hair, and a lifetime of snark.”
Khloe’s eyes widen, and the urge to do some evil villain laugh is just about irrepressible, but I manage to stave it off.
From the corner of my eye, I see Vi returning.
I could keep arguing with Khloe, but what’s the point?
I don’t believe there’s a parallel universe in which Lucas is dumb enough to fall for Khloe.
“We should get going,” I tell them, a very small white lie. There’s no schedule, and we’ve long since lost Wendell’s group.
Even though my arms ache from how tightly I’m gripping the wheel, and I’m dreadfully uncomfortable with the amount of sand that seems to have set up residence in all my bodily crevices, it’s still easier to drive and listen to music than talk to Khloe.
They’ve cajoled me into a couple of group photos, but sandwiched between the dynamic duo, there’s no disguising that I am shorter, infinitely more awkward, and apparently incapable of smiling correctly. The way Vi and Khloe tilt their heads means their hair tickles me from both sides.
I remind myself this is for Brody before tucking my half-green hair behind my ear and smiling.
There is a wall of text messages by the time we’re done and I allow myself to check.
The Twins
LENO: Lots of interesting pictures out there, Lorelai.
LENO: Does this mean you’re back in the family?
LEVI: More importantly, if Brody and Vi don’t work out, think we stand a chance?
Grad or Die
DAISY: Why are you suddenly an internet celebrity?
GWENDY: I wanted to be an internet celebrity.
DAISY: No . . . you didn’t.
GWENDY: I know, but I needed something to contribute given how exciting all your lives have been lately.
GWENDY: Lorelai? You there?
ME: Rich people r != like us
DAISY: != means not equal, she’s trying to say rich people are nothing like us.
GWENDY: I know that. I might not be all STEM STEM, but I’ve known you guys long enough to know some basics.
DAISY: Sorry
ME: eye != sry
DAISY: But really, why are you all over the internet now?
ME: Can eye explain l8r? So tired.
DAISY: Of course
GWENDY: We love you
Even Aurora deigns to comment.
AURORA: Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth when posing for pictures.
AURORA: Vi and Khloe should have told you. It gets rid of the double chin effect.