Chapter 10
Ten
From the moment I’d snuck out of the hotel bed and slipped into the quiet getting-ready that people do when they’re in rooms
where other people are sleeping, my body was on high alert. Blood pounded through my veins like I was coming off a workout.
I had absolutely, positively no plan, no fiancé, a surreal work experience, and the need to get new footing in a new world.
Priority one: Figure out where I was sleeping tonight. The thought of returning to my apartment to pack my things cranked
the dial on my cold sweat. I tucked the hotel key in my pocket, plugged my dead phone into the charger, and wandered to guest
reception to check about booking another night.
“Morning, Miss Adler,” the hotel receptionist said. “Let’s see our availability.” His fingers clacked on the keys. I rubbed
the goose bumps on my arms, wishing for a sweatshirt in the cool of the lobby. “We have room, but you’re booked under a corporate
rate. The card authorization expired at 11:59 last night. If you get the person who booked this to call again, we can square
you away.” He paused. “Or you could use a different card at the standard nightly rate.”
My chest muscles tensed. The regular fee at this place was easily four digits.
Wells and I had an agreed-upon percentage of both incomes funneled into a joint account for monthly bills, plus a shared credit card for travel, outings, or dinners.
Every month, we discussed with ridiculous ease who would pay what.
But even though Wells wouldn’t blink at the charge, especially knowing what he’d just put me through, the last thing I wanted to do right now was use that credit card when the other person’s name on the account had torpedoed our relationship.
“Let me see what my work plan is and get back to you?”
“Sure. If you want to guarantee the same room, catch us before checkout.” The receptionist darted his eyes around the lobby
that was empty save for a pair of security guards. “Oh, Miss Adler, before you go?”
I waited.
“We’re not really supposed to—I mean. I just wanted to say, well, good job yesterday. We had your broadcast on in the staff
room.” His voice was lowered.
My smile was automatic. “Even with that wrong-camera issue?”
He grinned. “Well, sort of. The famous news anchors, they did their usual charade, but this time, they were playing with everyone’s
lives. Like how those true crime stories are usually about someone else? This time, it was personal. And then we heard there
was this news anchor messing up—” here, my insides withered “—so we turned on to watch, and, well.”
I worked to maintain a non-horrified expression, but my answer came out weak. “Well,” I repeated.
He raised his palms. His skin was beautiful, blemish-free, perfectly hydrated. “No, no. It was good. You told it like a friend would.”
“Thanks.” I swallowed hard. “At least it’s over now.”
But it was far from over. In the hotel business center, I logged into my bank account after wincing my way through the security question answers. Middle name of your childhood best friend: Caleb Myers Mariner. Street you grew up on: West Labyrinth.
My fingers itched to check for a reply from him, but my phone was in the room. I couldn’t believe this tentative line of communication
had opened between us. We’d come a long way from West Labyrinth, a long way from—
My cheeks burned. Remembering yourself as someone na?ve enough to believe a handshake could maintain a friendship after one-time-only
together . . . my god. The confidence I’d had in that arrangement. The sheer belief in us.
The screen loaded. My balance painted my feelings in clearer numbers, and another tab revealed my hunch about the price of
this hotel for one night was right.
I wouldn’t go hungry tomorrow, and I had my parents as a last-resort safety net, but I was far from comfortable. This paycheck-to-paycheck discomfort was particularly cutting when I glanced at my most recent charges:
Etsy for the design of a customized mini Honey O’s cereal box for our wedding favors, a ten-dollar pre-book hold for an eyebrow
appointment the day after Christmas, a charge in the hundreds for the stamps we were supposed to use for invitations. Accounting
for a life I wouldn’t lead. Mortification brewed low in my belly. It would be so embarrassing to cancel all this, to label
the hours of preparation a waste, to tell everyone in our mutual lives we were over.
But those were problems for future me. Present me had to determine what to do now.
I exhaled. There were things I needed: more money, maybe a roommate, definitely a new address. I wanted some of my things—my
computer, with all the research I’d been doing on a story about the internet and the rise of the influencer; my NYU socks
with the hole under the fourth toe; the previous generation of AirPods that didn’t fall out of my ears when I ran. I craved
my sneakers. Underwear. Dignity.
I opened my email and scrolled until I reached it. Subject line: Your Soulmail is Attached. I hovered the arrow over the letters, tracing each one in thought.
Curiosity was an elixir. The idea of having a good match was powerful, a bad one terrifying. It could raise me or depress
me. If it was a stranger, or an acquaintance, or someone dead, like Sabrina—I pursed my lips at the sheer thought of it. It
couldn’t be unlearned. Knowing would take away the wonder, the spontaneity. Whether or not these were as certifiably, indisputably
real as they seemed, learning the information inside this email would do what I said on air with Richard yesterday: dictate
the rest of my life.
I rubbed my temples. Think, think, think. The perfume from the lobby, probably pumped in through the ventilation system, was
starting to turn my stomach.
I had a complex system of labels for my email, but no category felt right. I drummed my fingers against the keys until I gave
it the only solution I could, filing with the only two other emails I’d ever starred: a sale at Anthropologie that I neglected
to buy from, and a tax-deductible donation that I subsequently failed to enter on my taxes.
“You’ll stay with me,” Natalie said the second I finished recapping my morning. She was still in bed, her toes wiggling beneath
the duvet. “In my guest cove. Long as you need.”
The guest cove was Natalie’s converted-pantry guest room where her mother stayed every time she came into the city. She somehow
made closet storage into interior design. The project, which she’d catalogued on Instagram, had been repinned thousands of
times on Pinterest.
“But where will Helena stay?”
Natalie waved me off. “New rule,” she said, and the tension in my insides ebbed at our familiar phrase.
New rule. Two words for when something monumental happened, when we really meant something.
Our oath. It was why we shared our Uber ride locations, why we each kept a stock of pregnancy tests, why we soaked berries in a vinegar-water solution before storing them.
“We crash together in times of emergency.”
“I’m not sure that’s a new rule,” I said, but there it was: that full-body massage of relief.
Natalie hiked herself upright. “Why didn’t you answer my texts?” she asked, her voice neutral.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“My phone died. I left it plugged in here.”
“Huh.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What is it?” Her uncharacteristic hesitation was deeply unsettling. The woman bullshitted her way through
tests, job interviews, and dates like she’d orchestrated her life and they were her symphony. “Nat, tell me what’s up.”
“I texted Aili to wish her a happy birthday—she’s eighteen today. She’s furious she didn’t get a Soulmail yesterday.” She
paused. “And she sent me an article.”
I tried to compute the conversation between Natalie and her teen cousin. “And?”
“The article is about you.”
I recoiled. “Me? What publication?”
Hesitation again. “People.”
“What’s it say?”
“Um.” Natalie checked my face, seemed to consider something, then went for it. “ ’Kay. It’s called ‘Everything We Know About
Olivia Jane Adler (Starting with her Middle Name!).’ There’s an exclamation point after ‘name.’ ”
“Jane’s listed on my LinkedIn,” I said dully.
“Yeah.” Her head bent low over the glow of her phone. “Looks like they mined your socials for this. It has our grad year,
that you majored in Journalism at NYU, your hometown. Names you as the daughter of homemaker Sally and fisherman Harold . . .”
She glanced up. “Says you’re an only child.”
My forehead creased. This article’s writer had gotten their quiz answers wrong, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
My sister’s death wasn’t exactly a secret.
But whenever Sabrina was brought up outside my parents’ accord, it yanked visible years off their lives.
They liked to reference her at holidays, or venture into stories on their terms, but if someone else did, forget it. I’d rather dip a toe in molten lava.
Besides that, I knew that if the link between me and my sister was discovered, Sabrina’s memory would morph from a person
to a factor. An event that happened to me, instead of a whole person who lived and made a couple terrible decisions and then
dealt with a mighty struggle before she died. She deserved more than that.
“You know what they say. All news is true unless it’s false.” I flung myself onto the bed. “This is so bizarre.”
Natalie ran her fingers through her tangled waves. “It’s exciting, though, right?”
“It’s something.”
“There’s also mention of your viral engagement to . . .” Nat checked her phone. “ ‘Wells Stratton, of the Hamptons Strattons
finance family.’ ”
“Marvelous.”
“I guess you really hit a nerve,” Nat said. “You’ve been working so hard—”
“Hold up.” I rolled toward her. “I work hard because I love what I do.” Nat mimed a yawn, and I made a face at her. “Hitting
that nerve was right place, right time. Not everyone had access to a news organization yesterday morning. Add in me sharing
that video of the Soulmails between the makeup artist and the driver—that moment was absolutely shocking to witness in person.
I think it cut through all the online chatter, which is exactly what—”
“Influencers do,” Nat finished. “Like Aili.”
“Exactly.” Nat’s teenage influencer cousin was our primary source to the current generation.
Watching Aili amass hundreds of thousands of followers led me into a circuit on the rise of the influencer.
I was constantly filling research notebooks with different ideas, and because most of the things that interested me were at least tangentially related to my life experience (hello, years of notes on the reverberations of addiction in families).
No matter the niche, the key was in captivating an audience for just a moment and building trust. Approachability.
Authenticity, like the hotel receptionist had intimated.
“Well, you had your viral moment,” Nat said. “Maybe it’ll blow over now.”
“Hopefully,” I said. But I had the hunch the changes Soulmail had brought to the planet weren’t going anywhere.